
Book. S7 T5 



FROM THE PULPIT TO THE PALM-BRANCH 




COPYRIGHT. 



The above Portrait of Mr. Spurgeon has been produced from the last Photograph 
taken at Menton, Januarv 8. 1892. {See page 32.) 



FROM THE PULPIT 

TO THE 

PALM-BRANCH 

3 Memorial of 

C. H. SPURGEON 



SEQUEL TO THE SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, ENTITLED 

jFrom tl)e B&W^ Refill to tijc Cabemacle pulpit 



FIVE MEMORIAL SERMONS BY REV. A. T. PIERSON, D.D. 

M 

DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNTS .OF MR. SPURGEON'S LONG ILLNESS, AND PARTIAL 

RECOVERY ; HIS LAST MONTH AT MENTONE, INCLUDING VERBATIM 

REPORTS OF THE LAST TWO ADDRESSES GIVEN BY HIM 

AND THE LAST TWO ARTICLES HE WROTE 



IFITH THE OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE SERVICES IN 
CONNECTION WITH HIS FUNERAL 



Beta gorfe 
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 

51 East lOth Street, near Broadway 
1892 

All Rights Reserved 



i 07.0U 






CONTENTS 



PAGE. 

Adieu to the Tabernacle 13 

Breaking the Long Silence ..« 20 

The Last Month 32 

Home in February 40 

Two Characteristic Illustrations ... 46 

Memorial Service at Menton 50 

The Bereaved Church 55 

The Blessedness of the Holy Dead 61 

A Door opened in Heaven 7^ 

The First Day of the Second Week 90 

Tributes of Affection « ... 95 

Memorial Meeting for Members of the Church 99 

Memorial Meeting for Ministers and Students 125 

Memorial Service for Christian Workers ... ... ... 153 

Memorial Meeting for the General Public 176 

Funeral Service 191 

From the Tabernacle to the Tomb .« 205 

j^Meiaori«l,%f^(^efctrChiMfehI.*r 212 

" Aft teWmpk of' Service..'."^ ' .'.. ' .« 219 

^cRerP^iJibec yourc]>ad,er,... r-..^', ••• -•• ... ... 231 

c'AXl^oroli'giily'Fumisbea Life ..: ' 247 

List of Deputations from various Societies represented at the 

Funeral 267 

List of Churches, Societies, and Public Bodies sending 

Letters of Sympathy and Condolence ... ••• ... 26S 



PREFACE. 



This volume, which was at first intended merely to be a 
report of the Memorial Services held in the Metropolitan 
Tabernacle, while the mortal body of its late beloved Pastor 
lay asleep in the Olive Wood, under the Palm Branches, 
has, during its preparation, been enlarged to make a place 
for a brief history of the last chapter in Mr. Spurgeon's 
faithful and fruitful earthly life. Beginning with his last 
appearances in his pulpit, the course of the final months, so 
fraught with interest, is traced through their varying events. 
A short account is given of the terrible illness which caused 
such widespread anxiety, and evoked such world-wide sym- 
pathy; of the gracious recovery granted in answer to the 
continued prayers of God's people; of the journey to the 
sunny South, and the happy months at Menton ; of the 
entrance of the Pastor into the presence of the King ; and 
of the memorable days thereafter. 

Since this good gift, which the Giver of all good 
bestowed upon the Church, and upon the world, was to be 
taken from us, we are constrained to say that he could have 
gone from our midst in no better way. This is not only a 
matter of faith, but, having tried to imagine other methods 
of departure, we are compelled to fall back on God's way 
as the wisest and the best. 

Had Mr. Spurgeon been called suddenly, we should have 
been so stunned by the blow as to have been scarcely able 
to stand upright beneath it : a waiting time was, therefore, in 



8 Preface. 

mercy, granted to us, during which the forces at command 
were organized in such a way that, with the exactness of a 
machine, all worked smoothly when the terrible tidings at 
last came. 

Had Mr. Spurgeon been taken before such marvellous 
solicitude was shown around his sick bed, the enemies of 
the truth would have blasphemed ; now they are fain to be 
silent, seeing that, even in this life, fidelity to the truth, and 
faithfulness to conviction have been so greatly honoured. 

Had Mr. Spurgeon passed away amid the fogs of London, 
we should have imagined that, had he only been permitted 
to live beneath bluer skies, his life would have been pro- 
longed ; now we thank God that those three bright months 
were added to it, and that he was able, with his beloved 
wife, to have such uninterrupted joy on earth, ere he passed 
to his reward in heaven. 

Had Mr. Spurgeon ended his course in England, for a 
few days only would people have paused to have asked the 
secret of his marvellous influence ; whereas, under the actual 
circumstances, y»r twelve days the attention of the civilized 
world was centred in the testimony borne, not only to the 
servant of God, but to the Gospel he preached, in column 
after column of almost every newspaper. Truly, the Lord 
hath done all things well ! 

Many years ago, in one of his sermons, published at the 
time, he attempted to picture the scene at his own funeral, 
and expressed his own desire concerning it. 

" In a little while," he said, *' there will be a concourse 
of persons in the streets. Methinks I hear some one 
enquiring : — " 

" What are all these people waiting for ? " 



Preface. 9 

" Do you not know? He is to be buried to-day." 

" And who is that ? " 

*' It is Spurgeon." 

** What ! the man that preached at the Tabernacle ? '* 

" Yes ; he is to be buried to-day." 

"That will happen very soon. And when you see my 
coffin carried to the silent grave, I should like every one of 
you, whether converted or not, to be constrained to say, 
' He did earnestly urge us, in plain and simple language, not 
to put off the consideration of eternal things ; he did entreat 
us to look to Christ. Now he is gone, our blood is not at his 
door if we perish.' '' 

Far more abundantly than he dared to hope have his 
wishes been fulfilled, and only in the day when all things 
shall be revealed, shall it be known how many have been 
turned to the Lord by the death of the man who was so 
greatly honoured to lead people to the feet of Jesus during 
his life. 

Now he has left the Tabernacle pulpit for ever, and he 
stands amongst the great multitude who are before the throne 
and before the Lamb, "clothed with white robes, and palms 
in their hands." He is not in strange company there, for 
the song of those who wave the palm-branch was ever his 
theme as he stood in the pulpit : " Salvation to our God 
who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." From 
the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch has been for him a very 
natural transition. He preached Christ here; he praises 
Him yonder. Long ago, when the lowly Saviour was going 
up to Jerusalem, they "took branches of palm-trees, and 
went forth to meet Him, and cried *Hosanna.'" When 
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the humble servant of his 



lo Preface. 

glorious Lord, was going up to the New Jerusalem, did not 
some of the white-robed worshippers meet him also with 
palm-branches ? If they did, he would be the first to lay 
them at his Master's feet, bowing low in grateful adoration, 
and giving Him all the praise. 

None on earth can estimate his worth. He was tJie 
Evangelical Prophet of his age ; our modern Isaiah. Like 
Isaiah, he early saw " the Lord sitting upon a throne, high 
and lifted up ; " he had his lips purged with the live coal ; 
and when he heard the call, '* Whom shall I send, and who 
will go for Us ? " he gladly answered, " Here I am, send 
me." Beholding the Lord in His temple, he laid himseli 
upon the altar, and like Isaiah, he was "very bold" to 
declare the Word of God. Filled with the thought of the 
glory of God, he lived for the good of the people; he 
delighted to speak of Him who " was wounded for our 
transgressions, and bruised for our iniquites ; " and to invite 
thirsty souls to come and buy the grace of God, " without 
money and without price." Like Isaiah, too, he has been 
sawn asunder by some critics who would sever his philan- 
thropy from his faith, not recognizing that the one was the 
outcome of the other, and that the same clear head and the 
same warm heart belonged to both. 

Of this man of God, who passed away after almost fifty- 
eight years on earth, the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah is a 
full-length portrait. In the midst of the surface religion of 
his day, he obeyed the word, '* Cry aloud, spare not, lift up 
thy voice like a trumpet, and shew My people their trans- 
gression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Who more than 
he dealt his bread to the hungry, and brought the poor that 
are cast out to his house ? Let- the Orphanage and Alms- 



Preface. • ii 

houses answer. Did not he truly realize that the secret of 
strength lay in not doing his own ways, nor finding his own 
pleasure, nor speaking his own words ? He called the 
Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and 
God gave him a sevenfold blessing, even according to His 
word. 

His light rose in obscurity, and broke forth as the morn- 
ing. He deliberately set his heart against seeking great 
things for himself, yet fair and clear he shone undimmed 
before the world for forty years ; shining more and more 
until the perfect day. 

He had many answers to prayer; his communion with 
God became intensely real. The promise was fulfilled to 
him, "Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer: 
thou shalt cry, and He shall say. Here I am." The record 
of his answered prayers would, of itself, fill a volume. 

The Lord guided him continually ; like a httle child he 
was willing to be led. His whole life was a series of steps, 
taken at the bidding of his Master, and never was this more 
so than towards the end. It seemed as if God said to him, 
" Thy righteousness shall go before thee ; the glory of the 
Lord shall be thy rereward." 

Fruitfulness was the result. In every good word or work 
he abounded, and this other promise of the Lord was realized 
abundantly, — "Thou shalt be hke a watered garden, and 
like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." 

The twelfth verse of the chapter is startling in the cor- 
rectness of its application to him. In vain men speak of 
Spurgeon as ** the last of the Puritans." The leader of them 
he may have been, and the greatest of them, but not the last 
of them \ as long as the age continues, God will raise up 



1 2 • Preface. 

for himself a godly seed. "They that shall be of thee" 
we read, and we can apply the words to both Mr. Spurgeon's 
sons and to his students, — " They that shall be of thee shall 
build the old waste places : thou shalt raise up the founda- 
tions of many generations." Multiplication follows on 
fruitfulness. 

Joy is the sixth blessing promised. " Then shalt thou 
delight thyself in the Lord," — a word which surely was 
fulfilled in his experience. To him living for God was 
luxury, not drudgery. He could say, with a wonderful 
emphasis of heart, — 

*• How glorious is my King ! 
'Tis joy, not duty. 
To speak His beauty ! 
My soul mounts on the wing. 
At the mere thought, 
How Christ my life has bought.*' 

Last of all comes honour. " I will cause thee to ride 
upon the high places of the earth.". No stronger comment 
on this is necessary than the record of the following pages. 
" The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it,'' and the hand of 
the Lord hath performed it. Honour came to him who 
sought it not, who even counted it a light thing. Truly it is 
no vain thing to serve the Lord ! 

Added to this sevenfold promise of blessing, a name is 
given in the twelfth verse to him who lives such a life. No 
more suitable title could be selected for the sainted man, of 
whom this volume is a very inadequate memorial. 

*' 5rf)0u gjalt be calleti, 

' rn^t Restorer of ^atfjs to titoell xx^,: '' 



From the Pulpit to the Palm- Branch. 



%iim id the SCakruadt 



Standing in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the scene for so 
many years of his marvellous ministry, Mr. Spurgeon, on 
Lords-day mornings May 2,rd, 1891, commenced his sermon 
upon Ps. xl. 7: "Then said I, Lo, I come" (No. 2,203), 
with the following memorable statement : — 

"To my great sorrow, last Sunday night I was unable to 
preach. I had prepared a sermon upon this text, with much 
hope of its usefulness ; for I intended it to be a supplement 
to the morning sermon, which was a doctrinal exposition. 
The evening sermon was intended to be practical, and to 
commend the whole subject to the attention of enquiring 
sinners. I came here feeling quite fit to preach, when an 
overpowering nervousness oppressed me, and I lost all self- 
control, and left the pulpit in anguish. I come hither this 
morning with the same subject. I have been turning it over, 
and wondering why it was so. Peradventure, this sermon 
was not to be preached on that occasion, because God 
would teach the preacher more of his own feebleness, and 
cast him more fully upon the divine strength. That has 
certainly been the effect upon my own heart. Perhaps, 
also, there are some here this morning who were not here 
last Lord's-day evening, whom God intends to bless by the 
sermon. The people were not here, peradventure, for whom 



14 From the Pulpit 

the eternal decree of God had designed the message, and 
they may be here now. You that are fresh to this place, 
should consider the strange circumstance, which never 
happened to me before in the forty years of my ministry ; 
and you may be led to enquire whether my bow was then 
unstrung that the arrow might find its ordained target in 
your heart. The two sermons will now go forth together 
from the press; and perhaps, going together, they may 
prove like two hands of love wherewith to embrace lost 
souls, and draw them to the Saviour, who herein saith, * Lo, 
I come.' God grant it may be so ! " 

Although probably no one suspected it at the time, 
this was "the beginning of the end" of that noble life 
that closed at Menton on January 31st, 1892. The 
preacher was at the time terribly overworked, and applica- 
tions for additional services were continually coming. He 
struggled on bravely, however, and on May 17th, preached 
a sermon on the text : " My times are in Thy hand " 
(No. 2,205), which many people regarded as almost pro- 
phetic of the great illness he was about to suffer. He was 
even then attacked by that terrible scourge, misnamed 
"influenza"; and on the following day. Dr. R. M. Miller, 
of Upper Norwood, who was called in to attend him, 
forbade his venturing to the Tabernacle. He was, indeed, 
closely confined to the house for nearly three weeks ; but 
at the end of that time, on Lord's-day inorning^ Jtme 7M, 
he preached from i Samuel xxx. 21-25, the sermon after- 
wards published under the title of " The Statute of David 
for the Sharing of the Spoil" (No. 2,208). This will ever 
be a most memorable discourse, for it was practically the 
Pastor's fareivell to the Tabernacle. He was never inside the 
building again, until all that remained of him was brought 
from Menton, in the olive-wood casket, amid universal 
mourning. 



to the Palm-Branch, 



IS 




C. H. SPURGEON AND J. C HOUCHIN, 



1 6 From the Pulpit 

On Monday mornings June 2>th, Mr. Spurgeon went into 
what he called, in his preface to Memories of Stambourne^ 
" my grandfather's country." One object he had in going 
was that he might obtain photographs to illustrate that 
little work. In that he succeeded. We have reproduced, on 
page 15, one of the views taken by Mr. Nash, representing 
C. H. Spurgeon and J. C Houchin, the present pastor at 
Stambourne, as they appeared on June loth, 189 1. 

In the preface already mentioned, Mr. Spurgeon wrote : — 
" On the Thursday of the week, an overpowering headache 
came on, and I had to hurry home on Friday^ to go up to 
that chamber wherein, for three months, I suffered beyond 
measure^ and was often between the jaws of death." 

From that time Dr. Miller was again in constant attend- 
ance; and on June 24M, Dr. Joseph Kidd was called in for 
consultation. For a time, all that medical skill, patient 
watching, and careful nursing could do, appeared of no 
avail for the beloved sufferer's recovery. Meanwhile, prayer 
without ceasing was made to God for him, the world over, 
in ordinary meetings and in special gatherings. As soon 
as the critical condition of the Pastor was made known, 
the Church at the Tabernacle constituted itself into one 
great protracted prayer-meeting. Not only did thousands 
gather together for a day of prayer ; but for weeks special 
prayer-meetings were continued two or three times daily. 
Also, in many other places, meetings for earnest suppli- 
cation on Mr. Spurgeon's behalf were held, showing, in a 
remarkable manner, the real unity of the One Church of 
Christ. 

Besides numerous callers at "Westwood", letters and 
telegrams of sympathy came in great numbers from all sorts 
and conditions of men, and from all parts of the world. 



Mefnories of Stambourne. By C. H. Spurgeon and B. Beddow, 
Passmore and Alabaster, is. and 2s. 



to the Palm-Branch. \y 

The archbishops, bishops, and clergy of the Church of 
England were largely represented ; while Nonconformist 
ministers, of all denominations, were most hearty in their 
sympathetic utterances; and cablegrams, telegrams, letters, 
and resolutions came from almost endless Associations, 
Assemblies, Colleges, Committees, Conferences, Congresses, 
Conventions, Institutions, Missions, Societies, Synods, 
Unions, &c., including almost all the great religious and 
philanthropic agencies of the Metropolis, the United 
Kingdom, and many parts of the Continent and the English 
Colonies throughout the world. 

(We have not given here any list of the thousands of 
friends who thus expressed their sympathy with Mr. and 
Mrs. Spurgeon during the trying months that the Pastor 
was lying in such a critical condition at " Westwood " ; nor 
of those who united in the hearty congratulations that 
greeted his partial recovery. They were duly recorded at 
the time in The Sword and the Trowel; but at the end 
of this volume we have printed a list of the Churches and 
Societies from which resolutions of sympathy have come to 
Mrs. SpiATgeon or the Tabernacle since the "promotion to 
glory " of the beloved Pastor. It was quite impossible to 
make any record of the telegrams and letters from indi- 
viduals ; that would have expanded the list into a Memorial 
Volume by itself. The present list, lengthy as it is, must 
necessarily be incomplete, for the letters from distant parts 
will, doubtless, continue to arrive for a long time to come ; 
but it is as correct as it can be made up to the date of 
publication.) 

The letter to the congregation at the Tabernacle, dated 
August <)th^ of which, a reduced facsimile appears on the 
next page, was the first Mr. Spurgeon was able to write 
with his own hand after his long illness : — 

2 




^^ From the Pulpit 




to the Palm-Branch. 19 

111 The Sword and the Trowel for October appeared a 
long note from Mr. Spurgeon, thanking " the thousands of 
friends, of all ranks and religions ", who had expressed their 
sympathy with him in his long and trying affliction. On 
October ^rd^ Mr. Spurgeon and his private secretary, Mr. 
Harrald, went to Eastbourne, in the hope that a short stay 
at the seaside might bring to him sufficient strength to 
enable him to take the journey to Menton. Mrs. Spurgeon 
also went for a few days ; and the experiment appeared 
quite satisfactory, so that, when the Pastor returned to 
"Westwood", on October 16th, he was so much stronger that 
the arrangements for starting for Menton were completed. 

On Monday^ October 26//^, Pastor and Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, 
Pastor and Mrs. J. A. Spurgeon, and Mr. Harrald started 
on their thousand miles' journey to the sunny South. They 
were accompanied as far as Calais by two of the Tabernacle 
deacons, Messrs. Allison and Higgs. It has been very 
widely published that Baron Rothschild placed his saloon 
carriage at Mr. Spurgeon's disposal; but the fact is, that 
Messrs. Alabaster, Passmore, & Sons, and Mr. John M. 
Cook most generously defrayed the cost of the saloon 
carriage from Calais to Menton, and so enabled the whole 
party to travel in ease and comfort, and to arrive at their 
destination on Thursday ^ October 29M. Dr. FitzHenry at 
once took charge of his illustrious patient, and aided him 
greatly by his wise and kindly advice. The appearance of 
Mr. Spurgeon, from this time until a few days before he was 
called home, led many beside himself to hope that a long 
rest by the sunny shore of the Mediterranean would 
complete his restoration. He gradually gained strength, 
and his weekly letters to the church at home continued to 
be an unfailing source of interest to thousands. Not, how- 
ever, until the last day of the old year, was he able to 
conduct a service. Then, to a little group of delighted 
friends, he gave the following memorable address : — 



\\m\ms i\\t^ Song .^il^uij^. 



Two Brief Addresses delivered by C. H. Spurgeon 

AT MeNTON. 



©n tlje £ast lEbening of X89X. 



Dear Friends, — I am not able to say much to you at 
present. I should have gladly invited you to prayer every 
morning if I had been able to meet you j but I had not 
sufficient strength. I cannot refrain from saying a little to 
you, on this the last evening of the year, by way of Retrospect^ 
and perhaps on New Year's morning I may add a word by 
way of Prospect, 

We have come so far on the journey of life ; and, standing 
at the boundary of another year, we look back. Let each 
one gaze upon his own trodden pathway. You will not need 
me to attempt fine words or phrases : each one, with his 
own eyes, will now survey his own road. 

Among the striking things to be noted are the dangers we 
have escaped. After Bunyan's pilgrim had safely traversed 
the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the morning light dawned 
upon him, and sitting down, he looked back upon the terrible 
road which he had passed. It had once seemed an awful 
thing to him that he had marched through that valley by 
night ; but when he looked back, and saw the horrors he 
had escaped, he must have felt glad that darkness had 



From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 21 

concealed much of its peril when he was actually in the midst 
of it. Much the same has it been with us : thank God, now 
that we clearly see the perils, we have passed them in 
safety. 

During the year which closes this night, certain of us 
have been very near to the jaws of death, and some of us 
may also have skirted the abyss of despair; and yet we live 
and hope. Our path has been full of trials and temptations, 
and yet we have not been permitted to fall. Our heart has 
been torn with inward conflicts, and yet faith has proved 
victorious. No one of us knows how near he has been to 
some great sin, or some false step. A single act might have 
changed the whole aspect of life to us ; but from that act 
we have been preserved. Others have stumbled, and sadly 
fallen ; and we are of like passions with them : blessed be 
the hand which has held us up ! The Greek liturgy speaks 
of the Saviour's ''unknown sufferings." Doubtless they 
were the greatest of all his woes. We may with equal 
accuracy speak of our "unknown dangers," for probably 
they have been the greatest of our perils. The Lord saw 
what we could not see, and kept us where we could not 
have kept ourselves, 

I would remind you that to have evils averted is a choice 
favour. A Puritan father met his son by arrangement. 
They had each travelled several miles to reach the appointed 
spot, and when they came together, the son thankfully 
observed, "Father, I have experienced a most remarkable 
providence on the road ; for my horse stumbled three times, 
and even threw me, and yet I am unhurt." His father 
answered, " It is well ; but I also have enjoyed a remarkable 
providence on the road, for my horse came all the way with- 
out stumbling once." Truly, to be kept/r^;;^ danger is as 
great a privilege as to be kept in danger ; but we forget this. 
Let us thank God for preserved lives, continued comforts, 
and unspotted characters ; for these wares are marked 



22 From the Pulpit 

" Fragile" and that they are not broken is a marvel of grace. 
Since last we met, how many have died! Plagues and 
deaths have been flying around us, like shots in the heat of 
an action ; and only he who, of old, covered David's head 
in the day of battle, could have kept us from death. Our 
spiritual life still survives, and only he who holds the stars 
in their courses could have maintained us in our integrity. 
It ought to bring tears of gratitude to our eyes while, to 
quote the language of the Song of Solomon, we "look 
from the top of Hermon; from the lions' dens, from the 
mountains of the leopards." 

For my own part, I dare not omit from my retrospect the 
sins of the past year, of which I would unfeignedly repent. 
He who does not know himself to be sinful does not know 
himself at all. He who does not feel his own unworthiness 
must surely have grown callous or conceited. Sins of 
omission are those which trouble me most. I look back, 
and remember what I might have done, and have not done ; 
what opportunities of usefulness I have not seized; what 
sins I have allowed to pass unrebuked; what struggling 
beginners in grace I have failed to help. I cannot but 
grieve that what I have done was not done better, or attended 
with a humbler dependence upon God. I now perceive, in 
my holy things, faults in their beginning, faults in their 
carrying on, and faults in their ending. Delay to commence, 
slackness in the act, and pride after it, defile our best service. 
What an endless list our faults and failings would make! 
Oh, friends, when we examine one year of life carefully, 
looking into the thoughts and motives and secret imaginings 
of the soul, how humbled we ought to be ! As I rode 
through the streets of Menton this day, I felt bowed down 
with a sense of sin ; and on a sudden it flashed into my 
mind, " Yes, and therefore I have my part and lot in the 
work of the Lord Jesus, for he said expressly, * I came not 
to call the righteous, but sinners.' " Note that the words 



to the Palm-Branch. 23 

" to repentance " are most properly omitted from the Revised 
Version (Mark ii. 17). 

Why did Jesus die ? He died for our sins : he would 
not have needed to die for men if men had not sinned. 
Where there is no sin, there is no share in the sin-offering. 
If we have no sin, we have no connection with that Saviour 
who came to save his people from their sins. For whom 
does Jesus plead? He makes intercession for the trans- 
gressors : if I am not a transgressor, I have no assurance 
that he pleads for me. The whole mediatorial system is for 
sinful men ; and as I am conscious of guilt, so am I assured, 
by faith, that I am within the circle of divine grace. My 
faith places her hand upon the head of him who was our 
Substitute and Scapegoat, and I see all my sins and all the 
sins of all believers for ever put away by him who stood in 
the sinner's place. Let your tears fall because of sin ; but, 
at the same time, let the eye of faith steadily behold the 
Son of man lifted up, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness, that those who are bitten by the old serpent 
may look unto him and live. Our sinnership is that empti- 
ness into which the Lord pours his mercy. " This is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
Jesus came into the world to save sinners." On that blessed 
fact I rest my soul. Though I have preached Christ cruci- 
fied for more than forty years, and have led many to my 
Master's feet, I have at this moment no ray of hope but 
that which comes from what my Lord Jesus has done for 
guilty men. 

" Behold him there ! the bleeding Lamb ! 

My perfect, spotless Righteousness, 
The great michangeable, ' I AM,' 

The Kmg of glory and of grace." 

A flood of light breaks over the scene if we look back 
upon our mercies ! Now for your arithmetic ! Now begin 
to make your calculations ! Think of major mercies and 



24 From the Pulpit 

minor meicies; fleeting mercies and eternal mercies; 
mercies by day, and mercies by night ; mercies averting 
evil, and mercies securing good; mercies at home, and 
mercies abroad ; mercies of bed and board, of city and 
field, of society and seclusion, Mercy affects every faculty 
of the mind, and every portion of the body. There are 
mercies for conscience, and fear, and hope ; mercies for the 
understanding and the heart \ and, at the same time, there 
are mercies of eye, and ear, and head, and hand. The 
whole landscape of life is golden with the light of mercy. 
In the love of God we have lived, and moved, and had our 
being. We see mercies new every morning, mercies old as 
the eternal hills ; streams of mercy ; oceans of mercy ; 
mercy all, and all mercy. 

God has been specially good to 7ne. I think I hear each 
heart whisper, " That is just what I was going to say." 
Dear friends, I will not monopolize the expression ; it is 
most true from me ; I doubt not that it is also true of each 
one of you. Can we conceive how God could have been 
more gracious than he has been ? If you are familiar with 
the Lord of love, so that you dwell in him, and his Spirit 
dwells in you, you will join me in abundantly uttering the 
memory of his great goodness. How wonderful is his 
lovingkindness ! How free ! How tender ! How faithful ! 
How lasting ! How everlasting ! No, I cannot even 
attempt an outline of the Lord's goodness to us during 
the year which is now waning : we must each one review 
the record for himself. " How much owest thou unto my 
Lord ? " is an enquiry which must be personally answered 
by each one as an individual. 

One thing more before I close. What are the lessons 
ivhich our gracious God has intended us to learn by all that 
has happened during the year ? Each one of us has had 
his own order of discipline and line of learning; but all 
have not had the same. It is written, "All thy children 



to the Palm-Branch. 25 

shall be taught of the Lord," but all the children are not 
reading from the same page, at the same moment. 

Have we not learned to expect more of God, and less of 
men ? To make fewer resolutions, but to carry out those 
which were wisely and devoutly formed? Have we not 
seen more of the instability of earthly joys ? Have we not 
learned more fully the need of using time present, and 
ability possessed? Are we not now aware that we are 
neither so good, so wise, so strong, nor so constant as we 
thought we were ? Have we been taught to go down that 
Jesus may rise, after the manner of John the Baptist, who 
cried, " He must increase, but I must decrease " ? These 
are truths worth learning. I have neither time nor strength 
to suggest more of those lessons which experience teaches 
us when our hearts are made ready for the divine schooling. 
We ought to have learned much in 365 days. I hope we 
have. Permit me only to hint at a truth which has come 
home to me. 

During the past year I have been made to see that there 
is more love and unity among God's people than is generally 
believed. I speak not egotistically, but gratefully. I had 
no idea that Christian people, of every church, would 
spontaneously and importunately plead for the prolonging 
of my life. I feel myself a debtor to all God's people on 
this earth. Each section of the church seemed to vie with 
all the rest in sending words of comfort to my wife, and in 
presenting intercession to God on my behalf. If anyone 
had prophesied, twenty years ago, that a dissenting minister, 
and a very outspoken one, too, would be prayed for in 
many parish churches, and in Westminster Abbey and St. 
Paul's Cathedral, it would not have been believed ; but it 
was so. There is more love in the hearts of Christian 
people than they know of themselves. We mistake our 
divergencies of judgment for differences of heart ; but they 
are far from being the same thing. In these days of infidel 



26 From the Pulpit 

criticism, believers of all sorts will be driven into sincere 
unity. For my part, I believe that all spiritual persons are 
already one. When our Lord prayed that his church might 
be one, his prayer was answered, and his true people are 
even now, in spirit and in truth, one in him. Their different 
modes of external worship are as the furrows of a field ; the 
field is none the less one because of the marks of the 
plough. Between rationalism and faith there is an abyss 
immeasurable ; but where there is faith in the Everlasting 
Father, faith in the Great Sacrifice, and faith in the In- 
dwelling Spirit, there is a living, loving, lasting union. 

I have learned, also, that when the one church pleads 
with hearty entreaties, she must and will be heard. No 
case is hopeless when many pray. The deadliest diseases 
relax their hold before the power of unanimous intercession. 
As long as I hve, I am a visible embodiment of the fact 
that, to the prayer of faith, presented by the Church of God, 
nothing is impossible. It is worth while to have been sore 
sick to have learned this truth, and to have proved it in 
one's own person. 

In this httle circle, probably one and another may say, 
** These are not exactly the lessons that we have learned this 
year." Perhaps not. But if you have learned more of 
Jesus, and of his love, which passes knowledge, it suffices. 
Be thankful if you have learned even a little of Jesus. Do 
not judge yourself by the attainments of others who are 
older or more experienced ; but rejoice in the Lord. Bless 
God for starUght, and he will give you moonlight ; praise 
him for moonlight, and he will give you sunlight ; thank him 
for sunlight, and you shall yet come to that land where they 
need not the light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them 
light for ever and ever. May this year close with blessing ! 
Amen. 



to the Palm-Branch. 2J 

©n tJje JFirst fHorntns of 1892. 



In the morning the friends catne together again, and Mr. 
Spurgeon sat as before, and spoke with them ; this time more 
briefly. 

Passing at this hour over the threshold of the New Year, 
we look forward, and what do we see ? Could we procure a 
telescope which would enable us to see to the end of the 
year, should we be wise to use it ? I think not. We know 
nothing of the events which lie before us : of life or death 
to ourselves or to our friends, or of changes of position, or 
of sickness or health. What a mercy that these things are 
hidden from us ! If we foresaw our best blessings, they 
would lose their freshness and sweetness while w^e impatiently 
waited for them. Anticipation would sour into weariness, 
and familiarity would breed contempt. If we could foresee 
our troubles, we should worry ourselves about them long 
before they came, and in that fretfulness we should miss the 
joy of our present blessings. Great mercy has hung up a 
veil between us and the future ; and there let it hang. 

Still, all is not concealed. Some things we clearly see. I 
say, "z£/^"; but I mean those whose eyes have been 
opened, for it is not everyone who can see in the truest 
sense. A lady said to Mr. Turner, " I have often looked 
upon that prospect, but I have never seen what you have 
put into your picture." The great artist simply replied, 
" Don't you wish you could see it ? " Looking into the 
future with the eye of faith, believers can see much that is 
hidden from those who have no faith. Let me tell you, in a 
few words, what I see as I look into the new year. 

I see a pathway ?jiade from this first of January, 1892, to 
the first of January, 1893. I see a highway cast up by the 
foreknowledge and predestination of God. Nothing of the 
future is left to chance ; nay, not the falling of a sparrow, 



28 From the Pulpit 

nor the losing of a hair is left to hap-hazard ; but all the 
events of life are arranged and appointed. Not only is 
every turn in the road marked in the divine map, but every 
stone on the road, and every drop of morning dew or 
evening mist that falls upon the grass which grows at the 
roadside. We are not to cross a trackless desert j the Lord 
has ordained our path in his infallible wisdom and infinite 
love. " The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord ; 
and he delighteth in his way." 

I see, next, a Guide provided, as our companion along the 
way. To him we gladly say, "Thou shalt guide me with 
thy counsel. " He is waiting to go with us through every 
portion of the road. "The Lord, he it is that doth go 
before thee ; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee." 
We are not left to pass through life as though it were a lone 
wilderness, a place of dragons and owls ; for Jesus says, " I 
will not leave you comfortless ; I will come to you." 

Though we should lose father, and mother, and the 
dearest friends, there is One who wears our nature, who will 
never quit our side. One hke unto the Son of man is still 
treading the life-ways of believing hearts, and each true 
believer cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon the 
Beloved, We feel the presence of the Lord Jesus even now, 
in this room, where two or three are gathered in his name ; 
and I trust we shall feel it through all the months of the 
year, whether it be the time of the singing of birds, or the 
season of ripe fruits, or the dark months when the clods are 
frozen into iron. In this Riviera, we ought the more readily 
to realize our Lord's presence, because the country is so like 
"thy land, O Immanuel ! " Here is the land of oil olive, 
and of figs, and of the clusters of Eshcol. By such a blue 
sea he walked, and up such rocky hills he climbed. But 
whether here, or elsewhere, let us look for HIM to abide 
with us, to make this year truly to be "a year of our Lord." 

Beside the way and the Guide, I perceive very clearly, by 



to the Palm-Branch. 29 

the eye of faith, strength for the journey provided. Through- 
out the whole distance of the year, we shall find halting- 
places, where we may rest and take refreshment, and then 
go on our way singing, " He restoreth my soul." We shall 
have strength enough, but none to spare ; and that strength 
will come when it is needed, and not before. When saints 
imagine that they have strength to spare, they turn sinners, 
and are apt to have their locks shorn by the Philistines. 
The Lord of the way will find the pilgrims with sufficient 
spending-money for the road ; but he may not think it wise 
to burden them with superfluous funds. 

God all-sufficient will not fail those who trust him. When 
we come to the place for shouldering the burden, we shall 
reach the place for receiving the strength. If it pleases the 
Lord to multiply our troubles from one to ten, he will 
increase our strength in the same proportion. To each 
believer the Lord still says, "As thy days, so shall thy 
strength be." You do not yet feel that you have grace to 
die with : what of that ? You are not yet dying. While 
you have yet to deal with the business and duty of life, look 
to God for the grace which these require ; and when life is 
ebbing out, and your only thought is about landing on the 
eternal shore, then look to God your Saviour for dying grace 
in dying moments. We may expect an inrush of divine 
strength when human strength is failing, and a daily im- 
partation of energy as daily need requires. Our lamps shall 
be trimmed as long as they shall need to burn. Let not 
our present weakness tempt us to limit the Holy One of 
Israel. There is a hospice on every pass over the Alps of 
life, and a bridge across every river of trial which crosses 
our way to the Celestial City. Holy angels are as numerous 
to guard us as fallen ones to tempt us. We shall never 
have a need for which our gracious Father has furnished no 
supply. 

I see, most plainly, a power overruling all things which 



30 From the Ptdpit 

occur in the way we tread. I see an alembic in which all 
things are transformed. " All things work together for good 
to them that love God, to them that are the called according 
to his purpose." I see a wonder-working hand which turns 
for us the swords of disease into the ploughshares of cor- 
rection, and the spears of trial into the pnining-hooks of 
discipline. By this divine skill, bitters are made sweet, and 
poisons turned to medicines. " Nothing shall by any 
means harm you," is a promise too strong for feeble faith ; 
but full assurance finds it true. Since God is for us, who 
can be against us ? What a joy to see Jehovah himself as 
our banner, and God himself with us as our Captain ! For- 
ward then into the New Year, " for there shall no evil befal 
you." 

One thing more, and this is brightness itself : this year 
we trust we shall see God glorified by us and in us. If we 
realize our chief end, we reach our highest enjoyment. It is 
the delight of the renewed heart to think that God can get 
glory out of such poor creatures as we are. " God is light" 
We cannot add to his brightness ; but we may act as 
reflectors, which, though they have no light of their own, 
yet, when the sun shines upon them, reflect his beams, and 
send them where, without such reflection, they might not 
have come. When the Lord shines upon us, we will cast 
that light upon dark places, and make those who sit in the 
shadow of death to rejoice in Jesus our Lord. We hope 
that God has been in some measure glorified in some of us 
during the past year, but we trust he will be glorified by us 
far more in the year which now begins. We will be content 
to glorify God either actively or passively. We would have 
it so happen that, when our life's history is written, whoever 
reads it will not think of us as " self-made men," but as the 
handiwork of God, in whom his grace is magnified. Not in 
us may men see the clay, but the Potter's hand. They said 
of one, " He is a fine preacher " \ but of another they said, 



to the Palin-Bratich, 31 

" We never notice how he preaches, but we feel that God is 
greaty We wish our whole Ufe to be a sacrifice ; an altar 
of incense continually smoking with sweet perfume unto the 
Most High. Oh, to be borne through the year on the wings 
of praise to God ; to mount from year to year, and raise at 
each ascent a loftier and yet lowlier song unto the God of 
our life ! The vista of a praiseful life will never close, but 
continue throughout eternity. From psalm to psalm, from 
hallelujah to hallelujah, we will ascend the hill of the Lord ; 
until we come into the Holiest of all, where, with veiled 
faces, we will bow before the Divine Majesty in the bliss of 
endless adoration. Throughout this year may the Lord be 
with you ! Amen. 



h fast Mmilx 



On the first morning of January^ 1892, Mr. Spurgeon 
gave the delightful address which occupies the preceding 
pages. " Great mercy," he said, '' has hung up a veil between 
us and the future : and there let it hang." None who heard 
that address, and but few who read it as it was reproduced 
in the February number of The Sword and Trowel, thought 
that the immediate future would be for us so heavy with 
trial, or for him so bright with joy. 

On the last day of the same memorable month of January, 
the dearly-loved speaker, who uttered such wise and weighty 
words, "fell asleep in Jesus." During the darkness the 
news flashed round the world, and when February dawned, 
millions of hearts were saddened to learn that C. H. Spur- 
geon lived on earth no more. 

Many friends will like to know how that last month on 
earth was spent ; and by means of a diary, begun by Mr. 
Spurgeon, and continued under his direction, much interesting 
information can be given. In future numbers of The Sword 
and the Trowel, " Mr. Spurgeon's Last Drives at Menton " 
will be described, with illustrations prepared from photo- 
graphs, taken either under his personal supervision, or by 
his special request. The frontispiece of the present volume 
will be a peculiarly sacred souvenir of the sunny South, for 
Mr. Spurgeon is there represented as he appeared as late as 
January 8/7z, when this portrait, the last that was ever taken 
of him, was secured by his friend, Mr. W. C. Houghton, A 
pathetic interest must ever be attached to this picture, which 
will be treasured by all his friends, as a parting memento. 



From the Ptilpit to the Palm-Branch. 33 



r " 






1 




. 


i 


1 






^^V 'fl 


H^H^^^^^^^B^' wK^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^m 


i 


1 


HH. 



MRS. C. H. SPURGEON. 



34 From the Pulpit 

On the first Sabbath evening in January, most of the guests 
in the Hotel Beau Rivage remained downstairs in the salon 
after dinner. Mrs. Spurgeon played the piano, while the 
friends sang some of her favourite hymns from Sacred Songs 
and Solos, and Mr. Spurgeon closed the engagements of the 
evening with a prayer that will be long remembered by all 
who were present. 

Jan, 9. — Mr. Spurgeon completed the revision of the MS. 
of sermon on Psalm cv. 37, " A Stanza of Deliverance " (No. 
2,241). Never did he revise a sermon with greater ease or 
more delight. His pen seemed to fly along the pages ; and 
many times he paused, that he might tell us of the joy-bells ' 
ringing in his heart, as he recounted the glorious story of the 
wonder-working Jehovah : " He brought them forth also with 
silver and gold ; and there was not one feeble person among 
their tribes." How little he or anyone else thought that he 
would never revise another sermon for The Metropolitan 
Tabernacle Pulpit I 

Jan. 10. — During the >veek preceding this Sabbath, 
several fresh guests arrived at the hotel ; and not knowing 
whether all would approve of hymn-singing and prayer in 
the public salon, the Pastor's friends in the house were invited 
to meet, after dinner, in his sitting-room. (This room is at 
the right-hand side of the picture, underneath the lower of 
the two balconies. Only the top of the window is visible, 
as the rest is hidden by the palm-trees.) There were nine- 
teen present, and a very hallowed season was spent. Prayei 
was presented by Deacon Thompson, Mr. S. D. Waddy, 
Q.C., and Mr. J. W. Harrald. Mr. Spurgeon read and ex- 
pounded Psalm Ixxiii., and afterwards read part of his printed 
sermon, entitled "Let us Pray" (No. 288), on the twenty- 
eighth verse of the Psalm. The portion selected contained 
the three sub-divisions : — (i) Prayer explaitis mysteries. 
(2) Prayer brings deliverance. (3) Prayer obtains promises, 

Jan. 15. — A day of mingled gladness and sadness — Mrs. 



to the Palin-BrmicJi. 



35 



Spurgeon's birthday, and also the day on which the rumours 
as to the death of the Duke of Clarence were proved to be 
only too true. Remembering the kind enquiries of the 




HOTEL BEAU RIVAGE, MENTON. 



Prmce of Wales during his illness, Mr. Spurgeon telegraphed 
to express his sympathy with the sorrowing parents ; and he 



36 . From tJi£ Pulpit 

was especially pleased when he received a telegram convey- 
ing the Prince's "heartfelt thanks." 

yati, 17. — This afternoon, while arranging the hymns for 
the evening, Mr. Spurgeon said: — "I am going to give a 
short address to-night." Feaiing tha he was not well enough 
to do this, the friends who were present persuaded him to 
read something that he had already written. They knew 
that he was doing more mental work than he ought, though 
he assured them that he was only amusing himself, and that 
it was much worse for him to be idle than to employ his 
time in such literary labour as he felt able to perform 
without effort or weariness. He yielded to their entreaties, 
though he evidently wanted to have another opportunity of 
addressing the little company ! Mr. Harrald, his faithful 
" armour-bearer ", found out, afterwards, what text he had 
selected, and the divisions of the subject that he had made. 
Here is an ^yidJcX facsimile of the outUne he had prepared; 
what would we not give to know what he w^ould have said 
then upon this topic, or what he could say upon it now ? 

"The God of patience." — Rom. xv. 5. 

^-1^L/L^ ^.a^ou^ /v-^^dC^^u;/ 

The first hymn sung was the Scotch version of Psalm 
ciii. — 

" O thou, my soul, bless God the Lord ! " 

Then the Pastor read and expounded Psalm ciii., and called 

on his secretary to pray. The next hymn was — 

' ' Jerusalem the golden ! " 

Mr. Spurgeon then read to the twenty-one friends 

assembled his exposition of Matthew xv. 21 — 28, which 



to the Palm-Branch. 



37 




MR. J. W, HARRALD MR. SrURGEON'S "ARMOUR-BEARER. 



38 From the Pulpit 

will appear in his forthcoming " Commentary on Matthew's 
GospeV\ a work on which he spent most of his time during 
the last month. Prayer was presented by Pastor G. Samuel, 
of Birmingham, and Mr. Spurgeon announced the last 
hymn he ever gave out. How appropriate that choice poem, 
founded on some words of the sainted Samuel Rutherford, 
was to his approaching end — 

" The sands of time are sinking, 
The dawn of heaven breaks, 
The summer morn I've sighed for, — 

The fair, sweet morn awakes. 
Dark, dark hath been the midnight, 

But dayspring is at hand, 
And ' glory, glory dwelleth 
In Immanuel's land.'" 

His closing prayer was peculiarly impressive; and well 
it might be, for it was the last act of worship at the last 
service he ever conducted on earth. 

Jan. 20. — Mr. Spurgeon went to Monti for his last drive 
this morning, {^^o. Sword and Trowel, May, 1890, for his 
own description of the scenery along the road.) In the 
evening, his hand was so painful from gout that he went to 
bed early ; and from that bed he never rose. 

The following day, gout in the head gave increased 
anxiety concerning the beloved patient, and from that time 
until the end, it was needful that he should be lovingly 
attended and carefully nursed both day and night. This 
service was most cheerfully and willingly rendered. No 
one anticipated that the illness would assume such a terrible 
form, although the dear sufferer assured those around him 
that his head ached just as it did when he returned from 
Essex in the summer, and he feared that he was going to be 
as ill as he had been at " Westwood " during those anxious 
months last year. 

It was about this time that Mr. Spurgeon said to his 
armour-bearer, " My work is done,"' and spoke of various 



to the Palm-Branch. 39 

matters that showed that he felt his end was approaching. 
Still, all clung to the hope that he would be spared, and 
even permitted to preach again ; but on Tuesday morfiing, 
January 26th, Dr. FitzHenry was obliged to report his 
patient's condition as "serious." This was for many 
reasons, a memorable day, for it was the time appointed for 
bringing to the Tabernacle the thankoffe rings for the Pastor's 
partial recovery. (A full account of what took place at 
Menton that morning and afterwards, will be found in Mr. 
Harrald's address at the Tabernacle on Wednesday mornings 
February 10th, fully reported on pages 109 to 115.) 

Little can be added about the following anxious days and 
trying nights. Dr. FitzHenry did all that medical skill, 
constant attention, and loving care could suggest ; Mrs. 
Spurgeon, Miss Thorne, Mr. Harrald, Mr. Allison, and Mr. 
Samuel, were unceasingly watchful for opportunities of 
helping the beloved sufferer ; but alas ! for most of the time 
he was completely unconscious, and unable to communicate 
any parting, word to the loved ones who waited eagerly for 
the faintest syllable from his dear lips. He could utter 
no " dying testimony " ; his forty years' ministry made that 
unnecessary. If there is a regret that he passed away 
without being able to give any word of farewell, there is also 
the satisfaction of knowing that there was, on his part, no 
pain at parting from his beloved wife and family and friends, 
and no anxiety as to the Church, College, Orphanage, 
Evangelists, Colporteurs, and the many works and workers 
he was leaving behind him. At five minutes past eleven 
on Lord's-day, January 31st, 1892, the beloved Pastor 
entered heaven. 



\ms[ m 4#iniaii2. 



*• / s/iall be home in February,^^ was, for a long time, the 
Pastor's reply to everyone who asked him when he thought 
of being back, and he was home in February, in a far more 
real sense than any of us had supposed when we heard the 
words. Home ! How sweet it sounds, and especially for 
him who, after a sojourn in the South, was ever so eager, 
when he turned his face homewards, to reach as quickly as 
possible his happy home on earth ! With what intense joy 
he must have entered his glorious home in heaven ! 

Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, who has been most marvellously 
sustained by the grace of our tender Lord, beautifully says : 
" His * abundant entrance ', the * Well done, good and faith- 
ful servant ! ' of the Master, the great throng of white-robed 
spirits, who welcomed him as the one who first led them to 
the Saviour, the admiring, wondering angels, the radiant 
glory, the surprise of that midnight journey which ended at 
the throne of God ; all this, and much more of blessed 
reality for him, has lifted our bowed heads, and enabled us 
to bless the Lord, even though he has taken from us so 
incomparable a friend and pastor. All that was choice, and 
generous, and Christlike, seemed gathered together in his 
character, and lived out in his life. He was pre-eminently 
* the servant of all ' ; yet he served with such humiUty and 
wisdom, that, with him, to serve was to reign. All are feel- 
ing now the power he wielded over men's hearts ; and 
because a prince of God, and a leader of men, has passed 
away, * our houses are left unto us desolate.' I must not 



From the Pulpit to the Pahi- Branch. 41 

attempt to speak of his worth ; words would utterly fail me ; 
but the tears of multitudes, all over the world, testify to the 
irreparable loss they have sustained. 

" I will tell you of one fact which has greatly comforted 
me in my deep grief ; it will ever be a precious memory to 
me, and a theme of praise to God. It may rejoice your 
hearts also to have such an assurance from my pen. It is 
that the Lord so tenderly granted to us both three months 
of perfect earthly happiness here in Menton, before he took 
him to the ' far better ' of his own glory and immediate 
presence ! For fifteen years my beloved had longed to 
bring me here ; but it had never before been possible. Now, 
we were both strengthened for the long journey ; and the 
desire of his heart was fully given him. I can never 
describe the pride and joy with which he introduced me to 
his favourite haunts, and the eagerness with which he showed 
me each lovely glimpse of mountain, sea, and landscape. 
He was hungry for my loving appreciation, and I satisfied 
him to the full. We took long daily drives, and every place 
we visited was a triumphal entry for him. His enjoyment 
was intense, his delight exuberant. He looked in perfect 
health, and rejoiced in the brightest of spirits. Then, too, 
with what calm, deep happiness he sat, day after day, in a 
cosy corner of his sunny room, writing his last labour of love, 
The Commentary on Matthew's Gospel f Not a care bur- 
dened him, not a grief weighed upon his heart, not a desire 
remained unfulfilled, not a wish unsatisfied ; he was per- 
mitted to enjoy an earthly Eden before his translation to the 
Paradise above. Blessed be the Lord for such sweet 
memories, such tender assuagement of wounds that can 
never quite be healed on earth ! Up to the last ten days of 
his sweet life, health appeared to be returning, though slowly ; 
our hopes were strong for his full recovery, and he himself 
believed that he should live to declare again to his dear 
people, and to poor sinners, 'the unsearchable riches of Christ/ 



42 



From the Pidpit 




to the Pahn-Bra7ich. 43 

" But it was not to be, dear friends. The call came with 
terrible suddenness to us ; but with infinite mercy to him. 
The prayer, ' Father, I will that they also whom thou hast 
given me, be with me where I am ; that they may behold 
my glory,' was answered in his case. His Saviour wanted 
him up higher, and could spare him to us no longer. He 
is gone to his everlasting reward, and the hallelujahs of 
heaven must hush and rebuke the sobs and sighs of earth.' 

" Looking up, with tear-dimmed eyes, to the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can say, *Even so, 
Lord, for thou hast made him most blessed for ever. Thou 
has made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.' " 

A very favourite hymn of the departed Pastor's was, 
" Come, thou fount of every blessing." It was sung by the 
little company in the train that conveyed the Pastor and his 
beloved wife and friends from Heme Hill'to Dover, on 
October 26th, 1891, and during the hallowed service at 
Menton, on January loth, it was sung again. 

What a new meaning has been given to the second verse : — 

" Here I raise my Ebenezer ; 

Hither by thine help I'm come ; 
And I hope, by thy good pleasure, 
Safely to arrive at home " I 

Now, by the "good pleasure" of the Lord, whom he 
served so faithfully, he has safely arrived at home, and who 
are we to question the wisdom and love of him who hath 
taken him to himself? 

To the praise of the Lord's providential arrangements, 
it ought to be recorded, that the very fiist letter opened 
by Mr. Spurgeon's secretary, after his leader fell asleep in 
Jesus, contained the notice of a legacy of ;^Soo for the 
Stockwell Orphanage. Was not this a gracious indication 
that the Lord would still continue to provide for the five 



44 From the Pulpit 

hundred fatherless chilciren in "Mr. Spurgeon s Orphanage " ? 
God buries his workers ; but his work goes on. Doubtless 
he will move many of his stewards to bring of the substance 
with which he has entrusted them, that all parts of the work 
that he inspired his now glorified servant to undertake may 
be maintained with equal or increased efficiency. 

One bright reminiscence may be given. Mrs. Spurgeon 
had been looking at the planets, Jupiter and Venus, which 
were unusually bright, even for Menton, where the stars 
generally shine with a brilliance unknown in our dear dull 
island-home. Speaking of her beloved, she said, " I wonder 
what he thinks of those planets now." Mr. Harrald replied, 
" If they are inhabited, he has asked the Lord to let him go, 
that he may preach the gospel there." " No doubt of it," 
she added, " for how often he said that, when he got to 
heaven, he would stand at the corner of one of the streets, 
and proclaim to the angels the old, old story of Jesus and 
his love ! " This was his interpretation of the text — " To 
the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in 
heavenly places might be known by the church the mani- 
fold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which 
he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." 



to the Palm- Branch. 



45 




i^tticr (|.I|ai[a4ti|ri^tii[ Jllu^tptian^. 



During the early days of January, Mr. Spurgeon wrote 
the following short pieces. He was always on the alert for 
illustrations of spiritual truth; and these last paragraphs, one 
of them referring to Christian experience, and the other to 
Christian practice, may well be pondered now that the hand 
that wrote them is palsied in death. The second should 
especially remind us that the Institutions, formerly under the 
care of Mr. Spurgeon, and which will be carried on as here- 
tofore, are still in need of generous support. Let every 
mercy prompt an offering from thankful hearts. The hand- 
writing of both articles is as distinct as anything the beloved 
author ever penned ; and those who read them will at once 
perceive that his mental eye was not dim, nor his spiritual 
force abated, when he wrote as follows : — 

Weto l^zaf^ Has, 1892. 

" At Menton, the first day of the year was as one of the 
days of heaven upon the earth. Almost cloudless and wind- 
less, beneath the bluest of skies, the day was warm and 
bright with the glorious sun. Did we draw the inference 
that, all the world over. New Year's Day was like summer ? 
Did we disbelieve the paragraphs in the daily journals which 
told another tale of other lands ? We were not so foolish. 

" A certain brother has an exceedingly rapturous experi- 
ence, full of confidence, communion, and conquest. Does 
he, therefore, conclude that all true Christian experience 



From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 



47 




48 From the Pulpit 

must necessarily be of this delightful order ? Does he cast 
a doubt upon the sincerity of others, whose spiritual weather 
is clouded, and even darkened with storms ? Let us trust 
that he will not be so uncharitable, so unjust. 

" But if a friend, from a land of fogs and frosts, should 
insinuate that our report of the New Year at Menton 
was fanciful and fictitious, because he had experienced far 
different weather, would he not be very ungenerous? So 
the brother of sombre spirit and troubled experience is not 
acting as he should do when he judges the cheerful as being 
frivolous, condemns the rapturous as excitable, and looks 
upon the confident as presumptuous. He has no right to 
set up his painful experience as the standard by which to 
discern the people of God ; neither is he justified in deny- 
ing the possibility of unbroken peace because he has never 
long enjoyed it. 

"We may not judge others by ourselves. We may not 
infer general facts from individual cases. We must take into 
consideration a thousand things, and many of these we do 
not know : wherefore, let us not judge, that we be not 
judged."— C. H. S. 



^robocatiires of ffienerositg* 

" The mail from India brings news of the narrow escape 
from death of the ruler of the State of Morvi, on the i8th 
November, 1891. It is said that his Highness was at his 
stables on the evening of that day, and found his grooms 
searching for a snake that had been seen half-an-hour before. 
The pursuit was, however, given up, and the Prince drove 
out as usual. On the way, he suddenly felt a warm sensa- 
tion on his chest. He had put on an overcoat ; and as he 
unbuttoned it, a black, venomous cobra fell to the ground 
in a heavy coil, and glided away. His Highness drove 



to the Palm-Branch. 49 

back at once to the palace, and distributed a sum of Rs. 500 
among the poor, and gave feasts the following morning. 

" We, too, have seen a deadlier serpent drop at our feet ; 
but have we been as practical in our gratitude as this Indian 
Prince ? The deadly thing was coiled about our heart, and 
only by a miracle of grace have we been delivered from its 
venomous tooth : have we shown our thankfulness to Christ 
Jesus our Lord by helping his poor people with our sub- 
stance ? Have we made feasts for his saints by the utterance 
of the Lord's goodness ? 

" Every time we have a providential escape, or a gracious 
rescue from temptation, let us think of the Rajah of Morvi, 
and make haste to celebrate the happy event by bountiful 
liberality. If such were the case, one could see a new 
reason for the existence of black cobras, and other dangers : 
they would become provocatives of generosity." — C. H. S. 



^tcinoi;iaI ^tjmi^ at ^cnton. 



When it was finally decided that the remains of the be- 
loved Pastor were to be laid to rest in England, it was felt 
that there must be a Memorial Service in the little town 
where he had spent so many winters, and had been so great 
a blessing to many people in various ways. It was also felt 
that there was no place so suitable for such a service as the 
Scotch Presbyterian Cliurch, for Mr. Spurgeon had preached 
at the opening of that building, just about a year previously, 
the sermon which was afterwards published under the title 
of "Redemption through Blood, the Gracious Forgiveness 
of Sins" (No 2,207). The minister of the church, Rev. 
J. E. Somerville, B.D., made all the arrangements, in con- 
sultation with Mr. Allison and Mr. Harrald, and in accord- 
ance with the wishes of Mrs. Spurgeon. 

Thursday^ February ^thj was " a real Menton morning " — 
not a cloud could be seen in the bright blue sky, the sun 
made the Mediterranean glisten like "a sea of glass mingled 
with fire", and everything in nature seemed to remind us of 
the joy into which our loved and lost leader had entered, in 
the land where — 

" Everlasting spring abides, 
And never- withering flowers." 

There were many sad hearts among the representatives of 
all sections of the Christian church, who gathered around 
the olive-wood casket enclosing the precious body. Canon 
Sidebotham and the Rev. A. M. Topp, the ministers of the 
two Episcopal churches, were there, with Rev. Talbot 



From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 51 

Greaves, M.A., vicar of Clifton, Revs. Arthur W. Phelps, R. 
Logan, and other clergy from " The House of Rest " ; Rev. 
J. Lings, a constant Menton visitor, and friend of Mr. Spur- 
geon ; Mr. C. E. Faithfull, the sailors' friend, from Marseilles ; 
M. Palmaro, the British Vice-Consul,. Dr. FitzHenry (Mr. 
Spurgeon's medical attendant and faithful friend), Mrs. 
Han bury, and all of the Menton circle who could possibly 
attend. 

Many friends sent very beautiful wreaths, for the dear one 
went home from the land of flowers ; but Mrs. Spurgeon 
coriXxWiMlt^ palm-branches^ as the most appropriate emblems 
of the victory of her beloved, as he stood with the great 
multitude " before the throne, and before the Lamb, 
clothed with white robes, and palms, in their hands, and 
cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which 
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." 

The hymn beginning — 

*' Give me the wings of faith to rise," 
was sung. Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Murray Mitchell 
of Nice; and Mr. Somerville read Isaiah xl. 1-8, i Corin- 
thians XV. 19-26, and 53-57 ; 2 Corinthians iv. 17 — v. 10 ; 
and Revelation vii. 9-17 ; and then delivered the following 
address : — 

" In the presence of the dead, words of man seem inap- 
propriate, and eulogy is out of place. A prince and a 
great man is fallen in Israel. We meet, to-day, a company 
of mourners, and we desire to join in their mourning, the 
family, the congregation, and that wide circle who have sus- 
tained so sore a bereavement ; for Charles Spurgeon belonged 
not to the Metropolitan Tabernacle only, nor to London, 
nor to England, but to all English-speaking countries, and 
to many others besides. 

" In him, God bestowed upon our age and on the world 
a great gift ; and we are thankful that for so many years he 
was permitted to witness with such fearlessness, eloquence, 



52 From the Pulpit 

and power, for the Lord, whom it was his dehght to serve ; 
and that he was honoured to be the instrument of salvation 
to multitudes, many of whom never saw his face. 

" That active life is over here. No more shall that mellow 
and wondrous voice (the first that was heard in this church) 
plead with men, nor the ready pen counsel and delight. 
The labourer rests. The warrior's ' sword ' lies idle, the 
* trowel ' has fallen from the workman's hand, because the 
Master has said 'Come.' 

*' ' Charles Haddon Spurgeon is dead,' many are saying 
to-day \ nay, not dead, but entered on life more abundant. 
The chamber of suffering has been exchanged for the land 
where the inhabitant shall no more say, ' I am sick.' He 
has gone from us ; but he sees the King in his beauty. 

'* Shall we lament because another voice has been added 
to the chorus of the redeemed above, that the servant has 
been rewarded, that the victor has been crowned ? Gone 
home, not gone away, he is present with the Lord. In one 
more the Saviour has seen of the travail of his soul. 

" Only four days ago we prayed that he might be spared 
to us, and be allowed to labour longer ; but Jesus prayed, 
' Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be 
with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.' We 
cannot now wish that that prayer had been denied. 

" Shall we selfishly grudge the Lord satisfaction over his 
redeemed, or our brother the blessedness and joy of the 
Master's welcome, ' Well done, good and faithful servant, 
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ' ? 

" He has been called away in his prime, when to us his 
presence seemed necessary, and when he gave promise of 
years of usefulness. But his work was done, and we must 
learn to say — 

' Just when thou wilt, O Master, call, 
Or at the noon or evening fall ; 
Or in the dark, or in the light. 
Just when thou wilt, it must be right.' 



to the Palm-Branch. 



53 




54 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 

So we bow the head, and say, * The will of the Lord be 
done. Hallelujah!'" 

Pasteur Delapierre, of the French Evangelical Church, 
spoke in French concerning the great influence exerted by 
our departed friend over the French-speaking churches, and 
bore testimony to his fidelity to the revealed Word, his 
practical charity to all men, and his humility and love, which 
endeared him to so many. M. Delapierre also offered 
prayer for the bereaved family, friends, and church. Mr. 
Harrald delivered Mrs. Spurgeon's message to the congre- 
gation : " If you want to tell them anything from me, say — 

* He hath done all things well,' " 

and gave some touching reminiscences of his beloved leader's 
last days. Pastor G. Samuel, of Birmingham, spoke on 
behalf of the 800 ministers trained in the Pastors' College, 
and especially referred to the tenderness and gentleness of 
the departed President. The hymn — 

" For ever with the Lord," 

was solemnly sung, and then all stood while the coffin was 
carried to the open hearse, which proceeded at once to the 
railway station, followed by probably a larger and sadder 
company of mourners then ever gathered for a Protestant 
funeral at Menton. 



glui l^ptnid ^\m\nh 



Almost as soon as it became known in London that our 
beloved Pastor had entered heaven, the meetings of the 
bereaved church at the Tabernacle began. Monday^ the 
first of February^ had previously, at his suggestion, been 
set apart as a day of prayer that the epidemic of influenza, 
which then prevailed, might be removed. The prayer- 
meetings were held, and a very speedy answer was given, 
for the disease abated the same week ; but little did anyone 
imagine that the gatherings thus arranged would be turned 
to such solemn purpose as they were that day. With but 
little interval, tha people met together during the morning 
and afternoon ; and in the evening, an immense prayer- 
meeting was held, one of the largest ever known, even at 
the Tabernacle, and, amidst the hush of stricken hearts, 
God visited his people, and spoke peace to many. Mr. 
Spurgeon's own version of the thirty-ninth Psalm, often 
used at these Memorial gatherings, was then sung with deep 
feeling, for the first time. 

Every succeeding day, informal meetings were held, and on 
l^hursday, February ^thj Dr. Pierson, who has stood like a 
giant, strong in faith, all through the trying ordeal, preached 
from Psalm xc. 1 6 and 1 7, a sermon for which everyone 
who heard it afterwards expressed the utmost gratitude. It 
was just such a steadying message as was needed at this great 
crisis in the history of the church. The little-faith of many 
was rebuked; and new hope born that, though the chief 



56 From the Pulpit 

worker was removed, the work of God would be established ; 
and that the beauty of the Lord would yet be given instead 
of mourning, ay, even in the midst of the sorrow. 

Lord^s-day mornings February "jth — the first Lord''s-day 
without a Pastor — dawned grey and misty. Many an aching 
heart turned wistfully towards the place of solemn assembly, 
with mingled feelings of faith and fear. Very early, 
meetings for prayer were convoked, and the spirits of those 
who attended them were thus braced for the more public 
gatherings. A great crowd, dressed in deep mourning, filled 
the building in every corner. 

Rev. James A. Spurgf.on opened with the following 
prayer: "Our Father, which art in heaven, whither thou 
hast taken the beloved pastor of this church, we cling to 
thine unseen arm ; hold us up. 

" Hallowed be thy name ; it is everlasting. 

" Thy kingdom come ; it shall have no end. 

*' Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven — not our 
will, but thy will be done. 

" Give us this day our daily bread ; for our hearts are 
hungry. Break, through thy dear servant, our brother 
Pierson, the bread of life to us to-day. 

''Forgive us our trespasses, and let the blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanse us from all sin ; as we here to-day forgive all 
that have trespassed against us. 

'' Lead us not into temptation. Though thou hast tried 
us as silver is tried, yet, with all our trials which have 
abounded; thy consolations have much more abounded, 
praise be to thy name. 

"Deliver us from the evil one, and from every evil 
thought, word, or act, in connection with this thy hand and 
dispensation, or anywhere, life-long. 

" For thine is the kingdom ; and we bless thee for it, and 



to the Palm-Branch, 



57 




PASTOR JAMES A. SPURGEON, 



58 From the Pulpit 

thou shalt reign whose right it is, from sea to sea, and from 
the river to the ends of the earth. And thine is the power; 
hold us up in our weakness, and the widow and the father- 
less and the mourner everywhere, and specially those on 
our hearts here to-day. And thine is the glory, for we 
glorify thee in the fire now and for evermore. Amen." 

Though the tension of heart and mind was intense, Dr. 
Pierson, evidently helped by our Covenant God, upon whom 
he had cast himself without reserve, was able in the reading, 
and in prayer, to speak comfortable words to the people, 
and in the sermon he led the people away from their own 
loss to their Pastor's exceeding gain. 

On the evening of the Lord's-day, such crowds flocked to 
the familiar rallying-point, that, before the time of service, 
the Tabernacle was densely thronged with a subdued, black- 
robed congregation. The number of those unable to gain 
admission was so great as to fill the open space inside the 
railings in front, and to reach across the road. Dr. Pierson 
again preached with great power. 

The great Communion Service followed. He who has 
missed seeing one of these services at the Tabernacle, has 
missed a sight unique in Christendom. The body of the 
building, and half the first gallery, filled with communi- 
cants, and the rest of the space occupied with interested 
spectators, is almost an overwhelming spectacle at any 
time. But now, with the Pastor's chair empty, it was quite 
overpowering. With few words, and quiet movement, the 
simple emblems of our Lord's death were taken in token of 
his body broken and his blood shed for his people. As 
Christ's death has become the gate of life, it was felt then 
that perhaps the removal of C. H. Spurgeon might become, 
by the overruling grace of God, a deep and widespread 
benediction. 



to the Palm-Branch. 



59 




DR. A. T. PIERSON. 



6o From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 

At the close of the Communion Service, Deacon Thomas 
H. Olney read a statement to the church, which gave 
universal satisfaction. By unanimous voice of the officers, 
Rev. James A. Spurgeon had been desired and had consented 
to continue as Pastor in charge^ and Dr. Pierson had also, 
in response to an earnest appeal to that effect, expressed his 
willingness to continue as Officiating Minister. Only one 
sentiment prevailed in reference to this temporary arrange- 
ment, and that was deep gratitude. We all thanked God 
that, though one brother had been taken, the other was 
left. As we had never known how much we loved our 
departed Pastor until he was called away from us, we never 
knew how much we esteemed and valued his brother until 
he was left alone. Nobly has he fulfilled his part, and as, 
between him and Dr. Pierson, for whom we devoutly thank 
God, there exists a most fraternal union ; and between them 
both and the church, the heartiest sympathy ; long may the 
ministry continue, which has so auspiciously begun ! 

(This arrangement was unanimously ratified at the Annual 
Church Meeting held on March ist.) 



ihj| ll#<lrf«Jl^'^ of i\^ iolii iiiad. 



A SERMON DELIVERED BY 
REV. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D., 

IN THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, 

On LorcCs-day Mornings February -jth, 1892. 

" And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, "Write, Blessed 
are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the 
Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; and their works do follow 
them." — Rev. xiv. 13. 

From the beginning of this great sorrow there is one 
text, and one only, to which my mind has turned, and 
which therefore I take to be the message of God to his 
bereaved people. 

Very seldom in the course of human history has a voice 
ever been heard from heaven, but never unless some most 
august and important announcement was to be made. 
Heaven is not opened in vain : and the celestial voice that 
speaks with divine authority is never heard unless the 
occasion justifies the utterance. There are three remark- 
able signs that something is contained in this verse which 
is of no ordinary moment and magnitude. First, there is 
the voice from heaven : secondly, there is the command to 
record the message, for permanence, in the body of Holy 
Scripture, ** saying unto me, Write": and thirdly, there is 
the " Yea " of the Holy Spirit, as though the Spirit must 
add his emphatic testimony, that, in the mouth of two 
witnesses, both of them divine, every word shall be estab- 
lished. One feels a certain sense of awe in approaching a 



62 From the Pulpit 

text surrounded by such magnificent evidences of its super- 
lative importance : a voice from heaven ; a command to 
write; and the "Yea" of the Holy Spirit. Let us therefore, 
in the spirit of little children, seeking not so much to frame 
a discourse, as to open our ears while God discourses, look 
at the individual phrases of this remarkable text. 

I. In the first place, " Blessed are the dead which die 
in the Lord from henceforth.'* That latter expression, 
" from henceforth," is one of the most difficult that exegetes, 
or expositors of the Bible, have ever confronted. It may 
refer to a new point of departure with regard to the blessed 
dead ; it may refer to a new point of departure with respect 
to the revelation of that blessedness ; and it may refer to a 
new point of departure in reference to the testimony of the 
Spirit. "We may connect it with the second part of the verse 
instead of the first. " I heard a voice from heaven saying 
unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; 
Yea, saith the Spirit, from henceforth ; that they may rest 
from their labours." But you perceive that, while there is 
some doubt as to the application of the phrase, we are in this 
case embarrassed by riches, for the applications of the phrase 
are so many and possibly so varied. It may be that, being 
put in the middle of this verse, it looks both backward to 
the beginning of the verse and forward to its conclusion, so 
that it indicates somehow, alike in the redemption of God, 
and in the revelation of Christ, and in the testimony of the 
Spirit, a new point of departure — " from henceforth." 

Certainly there is one very conspicuous fact, namely, that 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ appears to mark a new 
epoch with respect even to the terms used about the departed 
saints of God. Stephen was the first martyr, and, in fact, 
his death was the first which is placed on record in the pages 
of Holy Scripture — the first recorded death of a believer 
in Jesus — subsequent to Christ's resurrection. And, notwith- 
standing the agony in which he must have died, under the 



to the Palm-Branch, 63 

stoning of his enemies, his death is manifestly a typical 
death, and the description of it has a typical significance. 
For we read, " He, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up 
steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and 
Jesus standing on the right hand of God ; and said, Behold, 
I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on 
the right hand of God." "And they stoned Stephen, 
calling upon God, and saying. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 
"And when he had said this, he fell asleep." Three marked 
features are there, evidently typical : in the first place, a 
vision of heaven and of Christ ; in the second place, perfect 
peace of mind, even amid the agonies of a violent death \ 
and in the third place, a new term applied to death — " he 
fell asleep." From the time of the resurrection of Christ to 
the last chapter of the Apocalypse you will scarcely once 
find the death of a believer referred to as death, without 
some qualifying phrase attached to it. There is one excep- 
tion. In the ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we 
read of the death of Dorcas, or Tabitha, and the word 
" died " is used with reference to her, although she was a 
believer. But the reason is obvious. Peter was about, in 
the name of Christ, to call her back from death to life, and 
therefore it was important that the actual fact of her death 
should be unmistakably stated. Had it been said of her 
that "she fell asleep," it might have been thought that 
Peter simply roused her from a trance; but when it was 
declared that she " died," there could be no doubt of her 
actual miraculous resuscitation from the dead. But in 
every other case that I have been able to trace in the New 
Testament the death of a believer is never once referred to 
as " death," except with some such qualifying phrase as we 
find in this text — " die in the Lord," which at once separates* 
such death from the death of an unbeliever. 

So important is this fact, as bearing upon the phrase 
" from henceforth " in this text, that it will amply repay us 



64 Frovi the Pulpit 

to examine more fully and in detail the terms used to 
describe the decease of God's saints. 

For instance, take the first epistle to the Corinthians, 
chapter xv., which contains a long discourse on the subject 
of death and the resurrection. In the sixth verse we read 
that Christ " was seen of about five hundred brethren at 
once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, 
but some are fallen asleep." Then in the twentieth verse, 
we read, " But now is Christ risen from the dead, and is 
become the first-fruits of them that slept." Then, again, in 
the fifty-first verse, " Behold, I show you a mystery ; we 
shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a 
moment." In the second epistle to the Coriathians, fifth 
chapter, we have another reference to the death of a 
believer, but again the word, ''death," even the thought 
of death, is avoided: "For we know that if our earthly 
house of this tabernacle were dissolved " — a tent falling to 
pieces, and the inhabitants going out to take another 
habitation. "Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed 
upon " ; the death of a believer is being unclothed as to 
the vesture of mortality, and being clothed upon with the 
vesture of immortality. And then, again, in the eighth 
verse, " We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be 
absent from the body " — out of home from the body — " and 
to be present with the Lord" — at home with the Lord. 
Then we turn to Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter first, 
and the twenty-first verse, " For to me to live is Christ, and to 
die is gain." There the word *' die " is used, but in 
connection with gain j and immediately, as it were, Paul 
abandons the word ** death," and says in the twenty-third 
verse, " For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to 
• depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." And then, 
again, in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter four, 
thirteenth and fourteenth verses, " I would not have you to be 
ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that 



to the Palm-Branch. 65 

ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For if we 
believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." Then we 
turn to the second epistle to Timothy, and in the fourth 
chapter and the sixth verse, we read, " I am now ready to 
be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." The 
Greek word for departure means to let loose, in order to 
depart, as the cables that hold a vessel to her moorings are 
loosed, in order that she may sail out for her haven. " I 
am ready to be offered ; and the time when my bark un- 
loosens from her fastenings that she may enter the eternal 
harbour, is close at hand " ; and yet he was looking forward 
to decapitation in the arena under the orders of Nero. And 
once more — without further prolonged study of this topic — 
Peter says in his second epistle, chapter i. verse 14, " Know- 
ing that shortly I must put off," or lay aside, " this my 
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me." 

This somewhat detailed examination may help my fellow 
believers in this congregation to appreciate the fact, which 
possibly they have never appreciated before, that the re- 
surrection of Jesus Christ marks a new departure in the 
death of believers, as least, as to the revelation of the 
blessedness and the glory into which they have entered ; so 
that, after Christ died and rose again, it was necessary to 
have a new nomenclature, a new set of terms, to describe 
the departure of the saint to be with his Lord. It would 
no longer do to call it " death," for there has been a new 
apocalypse of the glory of those that " die in the Lord.'* 

n. In the second place, notice that qualifying phrase, 
" in the Lord." It is no exaggeration to declare of that one 
phrase, "in the Lord," that no more important single phrase 
is to be found in the New Testament Scriptures. Any 
student of the Word of God in the original tongues will 
know that the little phrase, kv Xpla-T^ ("in Christ"), is the 
key to every epistle of the New Testament. The magnificent 

5 



66 From the Ptdpit 

thought, suggested by those two or three h'ttle Greek 
words, is something beyond the power of any man to set 
forth properly : " in Christ Jesus." Christ seems to be 
imagined and pictured forth by the Holy Ghost on the pages 
of Holy Scripture as a great divine sphere, vast as immensity 
and eternity, vast as the love and grace of God. And the 
circumference of that sphere marks the difference between 
sin and holiness, between condemnation and justification, 
between hell and heaven. By faith in Jesus, the penitent 
believer enters into that sphere, and thus crosses the line of 
circumference that separates between a state of sin and 
condemnation and judgment, and a state of holiness and 
justification and salvation. He is now henceforth " in 
Christ." We have no term to express the grandeur of this 
thought — insphered in Christ. " Who is he that can harm 
you if ye be followers of that which is good ? " What dart 
or arrow can penetrate the circumference of that sphere in 
which the believer is embraced and hidden with his Lord ? 
"The Only Begotten of God keeps him that that Wicked One 
toucheth him not." And if you are thus in Christ Jesus, you 
are saved, already saved. The moment that you enter into 
that sphere you are in God. The world is outside of you, 
the broken law outside of you, the gulf of perdition outside 
of you. You are in holiness if you are in him, you are in 
justification if you are in him, you are in sanctification if you 
are in him ; you are already, virtually, in heaven if you are in 
him. And so in the epistle to the Ephesians we have 
that strange expression, kv rois iTrovpavtois translated into 
" heavenly //rtr^i"." But there is no word for "places" in 
the original ; it is "in the heavenlies." We are not in the 
heavenly places yet ; we are in the earthly places. But if 
you are a child of God and a believer in Christ, you are 
introduced to the heavenly states and experiences and joys 
and privileges ; and, when you go to heaven itself, there will 
be scarcely a joy absolutely new to you, except the actual 



to the Palm-Branch, 67 

sight of your Master himself ; for you will have had, as in 
gentle droppings from above, a foretaste and an earnest of 
what you are going to have in full perfection there. 

That phrase, "in the Lord," must have at least three 
great interpretations. In the first place, a redemptive inter- 
pretation, to which we have referred. The penitent believer 
goes from the world, and from sin, and from Satan, and 
from condemnlition, redemptively, into this divine sphere of 
safety, hoHness and happiness. In the second place, actively 
and actually ; for a believer's life is taken into the life of 
Christ, his work taken up into the work of Christ, his destiny 
taken into the destiny of Christ, his life-plan embraced in 
the eternal plan of God. So the apostle says (Romans xiv. 
7, 8.): "None of us liveth to himself; and no man dieth to 
himself ; for whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; and 
whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live, 
therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." Oh, the magnificence 
of the thought ! Would to God we could rise to it, and feel 
its glorious reality ! While you live you are in this sphere in 
Christ Jesus. Are you any less in that sphere when you die, 
when you fall asleep as to your body, and, as to your spirit, 
you are at home with the Lord ? The apostle says, that the 
disciple that lives unto the Lord, dies unto the Lord ; the 
Lord has not surrendered his control of him when death 
comes upon him. Neither has the believer lost his identity 
and unity with Jesus when he falls asleep. We are thus 
redemptively in the Lord, and actively and actually in the 
Lord. And what shall I call this other, but being inwiortally 
in the Lord ? We are still in the Lord when we fall asleep, 
and it is unto the Lord that we die, even as it is unto the 
Lord that we have lived. 

III. But we turn now to look at the concluding part of 
this great text, "Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
from their labours ; and their works do follow them." The 
first part of this statement, " they rest from their labours," 



6S From the Pulpit 

is to occupy our thoughts liereafter more fully, and we 
may pass it now with a word. There is absolute rest, for 
every believer who is at home with the Lord, from every- 
thing of the nature of vexation, of task, of toil, of physical, 
intellectual, moral, and spiritual limitation ; from infirmity, 
sickness, disappointment, and disaster. All these and all 
else, which mar the perfection of our service in this world 
and interfere with the perfection of our joy in God, we 
leave behind us when, absent from the body, we are present 
with the Lord. 

But let us fasten our thoughts for a moment on the last 
expression, "and their works do follow them." That is 
another difficult phrase to interpret : difficult, as has been 
said before of another phrase — only because of the embarrass- 
ment from the various applications which may be made of 
it. There are three prominent applications which may be 
suggested. One is that the works, which are done in 
Christ Jesus, survive the departing saint and remain as his 
memorial and monument in this world. A second suggestion 
is, that the works which he has done here follow after him 
into eternity as witnesses before the throne of God to his 
fidelity, and as the means of increasing the measure and 
glory of his reward. And there is a third interpretation, 
which I venture to propose, and which, I believe, will com- 
mend itself to your approval. The Greek word translated 
"follow" may mean "to follow as one who goes immediately 
behind and treads in another's footsteps — to accompany." 
It is like the following of a disciple, close on the heels of 
his Master just before him; the following of companion- 
ship and fellowship. This interpretation is both suggested 
and confirmed by the difference in the terms of the 
original, which appears also in the English translation : 
"they rest from their labours;'' but "their works do follow 
them." What is the difference between labour and work? 
Labour, both in the Latin and in the English word derived 



to the Palvi-Branch. 69 

from it, as also in the original Greek word in this text, 
suggests the idea of toil amid hindrance and difficulty and 
weariness — burden bearing. It suggests the thought that one 
is doing a task that taxes his strength, and fatigues him so 
that he comes from his work, wearied and worn ; it carries 
the notion of strength unequal to the task, so that one faints 
at times, or feels himself circumscribed with limitations that 
he is impotent to throw off. But the word " work " means 
simply activity, doing, endeavouring, performing. 

How blessed is the thought that the Holy Ghost suggests to 
ub \ When a saint of God falls asleep as to his body, and 
enters into the presence of his Lord, as to his spirit for 
evermore, the labours, the toils, the vexations of this world, 
he leaves behind him ; but he carries with him into 
immortality his service. He goes to carry on his work for 
God, for that is as immortal as God himself. He goes 
where no limitations exist, where no vexations and 
hindrances circumscribe his activity, where " they rest not," 
because they are never tired nor fatigued ; where, as they wait 
on the Lord, they renew their strength, mount up with 
wings as eagles, run and are never weary, walk and never faint. 
The tireless and endless activity of a redeemed soul partakes 
of the tireless energy of an untiring God. Let us not 
suppose, for a moment, that when a man who has spent his 
life in seeking to serve God, who has stored his mind with 
all manner of accumulations, and, with the tension of per- 
sistent effort, sought to acquire and achieve all that is possible 
for his Master ; who has laid the foundation-stone of great 
institutions, has scattered abroad throughout the world the 
testimony of his faith and his courage for his Master's sake — 
let us not suppose for a moment that, when such a man falls, 
as we say, at the blow of death, his service ceases. God is a 
better oikoj/o/aos, economist, housekeeper, than that. He is 
no such wasteful keeper of his eternal house. When a 
saint departs to be with Christ, instead of leaving service 



70 From the Ptilpit 

behind, he enters on a new sphere of service, where, instead 
of sacrificing acquisitions and attainments, he rather finds 
an absolutely perfect scope for the exercise of them all; 
instead of ceasing to work for his Master, he rather begins 
his work anew in the tirelessness of celestial energy. 

What man may think about this is of no consequence \ 
what does the Word of God testify concerning it ? I have 
gathered together some few of the precious testimonies of the 
Word on this subject for my own comfort, and for your comfort 
as well. In the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, 
verse 38, Jesus Christ, rebuking the errors of the Sadducees, 
who said there was no resurrection, and no separate existence 
of angel or spirit apart from the body, says, referring to 
Moses, who at the bush called the Lord the God of 
Abraham and of Isaac and Jacob, " He is not the God of 
the dead, but of the living : for all (even all the dead) 
live unto him." That phrase, *' Live unto him," is used 
scores of times in the Word of God to express the idea of 
service. ** Whether we live, we live unto the Lord," &c. 
In this Book of Revelation itself testimonies are massed 
upon this subject. In chapter vii., verse 15, John gets 
one of the first and most glorious glimpses into the 
blessedness of departed saints when the elder answers, 
when asked as to the white-robed throng, " They are before 
the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his 
temple." In the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Revela- 
tion we find the text itself: "Blessed are the dead which 
die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that 
they may rest from their vexatious toils : but their activities 
go with them." In chapter xxii., the closing chapter, we 
find the sevenfold description of the glory of the heavenly 
host and the heavenly home. " And there shall be no more 
curse " — perfect sinlessness. " But the throne of God and of 
the Lamb shall be in it " — perfect government. *' And his 
servants shall serve him" — perfect service. "And they 



to the Pabn-Branch. 71 

shall see his face " — perfect communion. " And his name 
shall be in their foreheads " — perfect resemblance. " And 
there shall be no night there " — perfect day. " And they 
shall reign for ever and ever " — perfect glory. In the 
midst of this sevenfold description there stands that central 
and commanding sentence, " And his servants shall serve 
him." Surely service is the centre of the blessedness of 
heaven, service in its perfection ! 

This congregation is to-day staggering under the weight 
of an irreparable loss. It is admitted, on all sides, that the 
century in which we live has seen no other man that, as a 
gospel preacher, was the equal of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. 
I am profoundly convinced that we shall never again see 
another like him. I should be untrue to myself and untrue 
to you if I attempted in the slightest degree to conceal the 
fact that the shadow of an almost inconsolable grief has 
fallen upon the largest congregation of believers within the 
bounds of Christendom. But it is not the office of a 
Christian minister to aggravate such grief. We are bidden 
to "comfort one another with these words" of God, and I 
have sought, being providentially thrust into this responsible 
position without my own will, to point you to the testimony 
of the Word of God, that it might be possible, leaning on 
the arm of a divine and unfaltering strength, to avoid being 
utterly prostrated and wrecked in hope by this unspeakable 
loss. Suffer me, beside those words of comfort which I 
have already brought to you from the precious Word of 
God, to suggest two or three closing reflections. 

We are not now attempting to exhaust the testimony to 
this beloved Pastor, This day is but the beginning of a week 
of funeral services, at which the tributes to him will cover 
every department of his character and his career. But just 
now, in sympathy with the theme we have considered, may 
I pluck a few sweet " apples " from God's blessed tree of 
consolation, and put them into your hand ? 



72 From the Pulpit 

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away." It 
is all "the Lord's doing.'' A gardener walked through the 
conservatory and looked upon the valuable plants that had 
just come into bloom, and, seeing one of the flowers freshly 
plucked from its stem, he said to his servant, "Who plucked 
that flower ? " The servant ■ said " The master," and the 
gardener held his peace, and answered never a word. " I 
was dumb with silence, I opened not my mouth because 
thou didst it." The Master has plucked one of the fairest 
flowers of the century, and we must answer never a word. 
We bow in awe before what is, perhaps, the most mysterious 
dealing of God with his church that has come to our 
knowledge in this generation. But, blessed be God ! what 
is a mystery to us is no mystery to him. And he says to 
us, " What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know 
hereafter." It is God's doing. It behoves us to keep 
silence ; to accept the mystery and wait patiently for its 
explanation. But your departed Pastor belongs from 
henceforth to the blessed dead which die in the Lord. 
It will go far to wipe the tears away from your eyes, to think 
of your Pastor as having been seven days in heaven. He 
knows more to-day than all the philosophers and wise men 
on the face of the earth. Even the knowledge that he had, 
in this world, of his Saviour, has comparatively vanished 
away, for now he stands face to face with him in the glory. 
He has kissed the feet that were pierced for him ; and, full 
of the ecstatic vision of the Master whom he loved, not 
even the wants and woes of this congregation would bring 
him, from that hidden glory, down to the toils and vexations 
of earth again. His works have gone with him, and they 
are already rewarding him in the presence of God. 

Think of the meeting there at midnight, on the thirty- 
first day ot January, when Charles Haddon Spurgeon 
heard the voice from heaven, saying, "Come up hither, 
and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter ! " In 



to the Palm- Branch. 73 

18 1 6, William A. B. Johnson, missionary of the Church 
Missionary Society, went down to Sierra Leone, to labour 
among the refuse population of that colony of rescued 
slaves. In 182 1, after five years of careful, prayerful 
toil, he had built his model state and had organized these 
slaves, gathered from the holds of slave-ships, into a well- 
ordered and thriving Christian community, where honour- 
able trades and callings and learned professions were 
represented, and where the colonists, clothed and in their 
right mind, occupied their own neat, beautiful and well- 
ordered homes, and assembled in the house of God for 
praise and prayer. Another cargo of slaves, 217 in number, 
being landed at the colony, they were sent to Regent's 
Town, where the model state had been organized, that 
they might enter as constitutent elements into that colony, 
under the control of Mr. Johnson. He tells us that, on 
that day in May, 182 1, he saw a sight that, for pathos and 
for grandeur, eclipsed anything that he had ever seen 
before. As those hundreds of rescued slaves arrived in 
the town, the members of the colony, with one mind and 
heart, rushed forth from their houses to afford these new- 
comers a cordial Christian welcome ; and, as Mr. Johnson 
was passing along the street, he heard shouts of acclamation 
that made the very heavens seem to resound with their 
echo; and his converted colonists came running to him, 
and one after another said, " Oh, Mr. Johnson ! there is 
my brother ! there is my sister ! yonder is my father ! yonder is 
my mother ! my son ! my daughter ! " In those freshly rescued 
slaves, these men and women, who had been redeemed 
from the filth, the misery, the poverty of their depraved, 
degraded condition, recognized their long-lost relatives and 
friends. When the Pastor entered the glory that midnight 
on last Lord's-day, one can almost imagine that shouts rent 
the air of heaven, as thousands and tens of thousands who 
had been brought to Christ, by that loving voice which we 



74 From the Pulpit 

are never to hear on earth again, and by those printed 
sermons that, Uke leaves of the tree of life, have been 
borne away as on the wings of the wind for the healing of the 
nations — that thousands and tens of thousands — and it may 
be hundreds of thousands — of whom he had never heard, who 
had found a blessing through his voice or his pen, and had 
found their way into heaven before him — were at the gate 
ready with their acclamations to welcome him, through 
whom they had also "found him of whom Moses in the 
law and the prophets did write : Jesus of Nazareth, the son 
of Joseph." 

Your Pastor's reward has, seven days ago, begun in the 
higher and heavenly sphere. Think not that I make light of 
your grief. God knows I owe too much to Charles Haddon 
Spurgeon myself for whatever little power there is in my 
ministry, or strength in my faith, or courage and confidence 
in my espousal of neglected and despised truths, not to share 
most keenly in this sorrow. But the time has come for us 
to look up ; we must not look down \ we shall go down if 
we look down. And if we look up by faith we may see the 
door opened in heaven, and see there that beloved man who 
shall never more know weakness or infirmity, from whose 
eyes all tears have been forever wiped away, who shall never 
henceforth find it difficult to serve his Master, and whose 
work shall never more be a vexatious and wearisome toil. 
To him already there have been disclosed the sheaves of a 
vast harvest, whose seed he sowed beside all waters ; much 
of the seed that he thus scattered was borne away from his 
own sight, and the results of his own unselfish husbandry 
were disclosed only when he stood before his Master in the 
ecstasy of the heavenly life. 

" Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from 
henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from 
their labours ; and their works do follow them." God 
is saying to this congregation to-day: ''Be up and doing; 



to the Palm-Branch. 75 

work while the day lasts ; whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, 
do it with thy might." And especially is God saying to the 
unconverted members of this congregation, " Remember the 
words that he spake unto you, being yet present with you." 
If his voice did not bring you to Christ while he lived, will 
you not let that voice which speaks to you from his coffin 
persuade you to come to the Christ that he still presses on 
your believing and affectionate choice ? Will you not help 
to accumulate his reward, even now when he has gone from 
you, by coming within the circumference of the great sphere 
of grace, in Jesus Christ ? " Being dead, he yet speaketh " ; 
he beseeches you with celestial earnestness to live unto the 
Lord from this day, and die unto the Lord when the summons 
comes to you. Then, with him, you shall fall at the feet of 
your common Saviour in the ascriptions of endless praise. 
Amen. 



A SERMON DELIVERED BY 
REV. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D., 

IN THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, 

On Lord's-day Evening, February jth, 1892. 

*' After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven : 
and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking 
with me ; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things 
which must be hereafter." — Rev. iv. i. ■ 

This book is called the " Apocalypse," because it is the 
opening of hidden things, the revelation of mysteries kept 
secret from the foundation of the world. The first three 
chapters are prefatory and introductory. They contain a 
salutation, and then an account of the personal vision of the 
ascended and glorified Christ, with a record of the messages 
which he dictated to his servant John to be written to the 
seven churches of Asia Minor. This fourth chapter opens 
with the words, " After this I looked, and, behold, a door 
was opened in heaven." That is to say, at the beginning of 
the fourth chapter we start with the Apocalypse proper, or 
the unfolding of the marvellous mysteries of heaven. " A 
door was opened in heaven " — it is the first time a door was 
ever opened into those great mysteries, and a believer bidden 
to "come up hither and behold the things that shall be 
hereafter": the first time, except, perhaps, when the apostle 
Paul was caught up to the third heaven. Certainly to the 
same degree and with the same explicit declaration of these 
mysteries, we have no other such vision of heaven in the 



From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 77 

Word of God : if a believer had ever before had knowledge 
so complete of the marvels of that celestial world, he had 
never come back to earth to reveal them to men. Here is 
*'a door opened in heaven"; a celestial ** voice" that 
speaks with divine authority; and a "shewing" or revelation 
of the hereafter. 

The scene is thus transferred from earth to heaven, from 
the present to the future, from the here to the hereafter. 
And if you will follow, step by stej), the nineteen chapters 
that constitute the remainder of this book of the Apocalypse, 
you will find that everything proper to be communicated or 
possible to be communicated, concerning that marvellous 
and mysterious sphere of life, has been at least outlined on 
the pages of this holy record. Surely it is not strange that, 
in the rnidst of a great sorrow like this for you, and a great 
triumph like this for him who has departed, we should gladly 
get a glimpse of the abode where he is, and the joy that in 
the' future state awaits all fellow believers. So may God 
help us to get out of this word of revelation the balm of a 
divine comfort ! Let us look through this open door, and 
see what John saw. 

First of all he saw a throne and him that sat upon it, and 
a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an 
emerald. The central object, and the central glory in the 
vision of heaven, is God ; and if we have not learned to 
think of heaven as, first of all, not the place where our 
departed friends, however dear, are gathered, but, first of 
all, as the place where God dwells, we lack the fundamental 
conception of heaven. The first thing that John saw, and 
the first thing to be seen, was the throne of God. The 
light and glory of that divine presence makes every star 
grow dim, and fills the whole horizon of heaven and the 
whole vision of the redeemed. 

What is the significance of the rainbow round about the 
throne? The rainbow was the first sign of covenant 



yS From the Pulpit 

promise. When God set the bow in the cloud, he called 
the attention of Noah and his family to tne fact that it 
was to be the sign of covenant relation. Whatever else 
the ** rainbow round about the throne" represents, it seems 
to say to me, as a believer, that the God that sits on the 
throne is " my God " in covenant, and that I need not be 
afraid to approach him if I approach him under the shelter 
of the covenant sign. 

There is another equally conspicuous object that John 
saw there, a very curious and complex object, too — a Lion- 
Lamb — the " Lion of the tribe of Juda," and the ** Lamb as 
it had been slain," combined in one. A lion for majesty, a 
lamb for meekness ; a lion for strength, a lamb for weak- 
ness; a lion as the reigning sovereign, a lamb as the atoning 
sacrifice. God's Lion is a lamb, and God's Lamb is a lion ; 
and if any of you have ever doubted the equality of Jesus 
Christ with God the Father in essence and in glory, I beg 
you to notice how, through these nineteen chapters of this 
book of the Revelation, there is no worship paid, or honour 
ascribed to God the Father, on the throne, that is not 
equally offered and ascribed to that Lion-Lamb, that Lamb- 
Lion. 

And, as there is a rainbow round about the throne, which 
reminds me that God is my God in covenant, so that Lion- 
Lamb has about him blood that interprets the sealed book ; 
for in the next chapter we read of the book, written on the 
surface and on the backside, and sealed with seven seals, 
and that no man was found worthy to open the book, or 
unloose the seven seals ; but this Lion-Lamb of God pre- 
vailed to open the book and unloose its seals; and the 
ascription of praise and of worship testifies that he was 
found worthy and competent both to unloose the seals and 
to interpret the record. Oh, the interpreting power of 
the blood of Christ ! Is prophecy a sealed book to you ? 
You have never applied the blood to it, for there is not a 



to the Palm-Brauch. 79 

seal there that the blood does not dissolve and unloose. Is 
human history a sealed book to you ? Touch the seals with 
the blood, and the history is found to be the record of 
God's redemptive plan. Is the providence of God a sealed 
book to you ? Touch the seals with the blood, and the 
mysterious providence of God is explained. Is this your 
present bereavement an event inexplicable to you ? The 
interpreting power of the blood shall reveal to you its 
meaning in God's good time. Is the Bible a sealed book to 
you ? From Genesis to the Apocalypse, Christ is the light 
that illumines its darkest pages. And so we have God on 
the throne, with the rainbow of the covenant assuring the 
soul ; and we have the Lion and the Lamb, with the power of 
his blood to interpret the Word of God — the book of 
prophecy, of history, and the oftentimes more mysterious 
book of God's providential dealing. 

Then round about the throne there is a countless host of 
angels. Numbers are exhausted to express the vastness of 
their multitude. "And the number of them was ten thousand 
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands." That is, 
ten thousand times ten thousand, which is one hundred 
millions, and thousands multiplied into thousands, which 
gives us another multiplier of millions ; and so we have, at 
the lowest figure, hundreds of millions multiplied by mil- 
lions : in other words, absolutely countless myriads, or 
multitudes of angels. According to the literal interpretation 
of these figures, they would more than sixty times out- 
number the entire population of the globe ! Sixty spheres 
like this, each inhabited by fifteen hundred millions of 
human beings, would give us only the equivalent of these 
numbers if we take them at the lowest reckoning, and dis- 
regard the plural form of the multipliers. 

Within the circle of these angels, as though nearer in 
relation to God than even the angels themselves, there is a 
multitude besides. 



8o From the Pulpit 

In the first place, there are those four mysterious living 
creatures (^wa) which remind us of the cherubic vision of 
Ezekiel. We know not what those living creatures re- 
present, but if I may give my personal "judgment as one 
who has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful," I am 
more and more satisfied that they represent the great ruling 
attributes of God, such as wisdom, and power, and love, 
and grace, in their relation to the salvation of the lost race 
of man. But, as this matter is encumbered with mystery, 
we pass it by. 

In close connection with these four hving creatures, there 
are twenty-four elders, and- we shall have less difficulty in 
recognizing in them the representatives of the body of 
behevers in the Old Testament and in the New ; that is to 
say, the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles, twenty-four 
representative elders signifying the entire body of believers, 
both in the Jewish dispensation and in the Christian dis- 
pensation. Their viols and their harps, their palms and 
their songs, all indicate their individual connection with the 
scheme of redeeming love. 

Beside these, we have, in the seventh chapter of this 
book, an account of the "hundred and forty and four 
thousand " sealed from among the tribes of the children of 
Israel. It is wonderful how the Bible interprets itself, for, 
in a subsequent chapter (xiv.), where these hundred and 
forty-four thousand again appear, we are told they are the 
"first fruits unto God and the Lamb." First fruits are 
those first gathered out from the harvest field, the specimen 
of the harvest to come, but only a specimen; and these 
virginal redeemed ones that have never been " defiled with 
women," — and are therefore in marked'contrast with the fol- 
lowers of adulterous Babylon — and who, so far as they have 
been defiled by sin, are washed in the blood of the Lamb 
and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, — these are 
*'the first fruits"; and so, after this, the apostle John 



to the Palm-B ranch. 8 1 

beheld "a great multitude, which no man could number, 
of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues," 
sorrounding the throne of God. They represent the final 
harvest, of which the hundred and forty-four thousand are 
only the first fruits. 

As has been said, the twenty-four elders and these hundred 
and forty-four thousand, and the multitude that no man 
could number, all stand inside of the circle of the angelic 
host, as though nearer to God than the angels themselves.. 
And it is no exaggeration to say that a believer in Jesus 
Christ, in his finally redeemed estate, will stand in closer 
relation to God than even the angelic hosts ; for, among all 
the angels, none are accounted worthy to constitute the 
bride of Christ, but that bride is to be gathered out of all 
peoples of the earth, and to enter into relations of espousal 
with the crucified but risen Jesus. 

So much for the inhabitants of heaven. 

Let us go a step further. What is revealed about the 
employments and enjoyments of heaven? 

First of all there is endless worship. Worship means 
worth-ship, the ascribing of worth to Almighty God. 
"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour 
and power." And, in all parts of this book of the 
Apocalypse, there is the same tireless, endless, heart-felt, 
adoring worship. Let us stop to consider a moment, 
that, if you do not love worship, you never can enter 
heaven. If you do not love worship, you are unfitted for 
the main activity and ecstacy of heaven, which is endless 
ascription of glory and praise to God and the Lamb ! 

And then, besides this worship, there is endless and 
tireless activity, as we have already seen. "They serve 
him day and night in his temple." "His servants shall 
serve him ;" their activity ennobled, and strengthened ; their 
activity, in its nobler and grander sphere of service, knowing 
nothing of present limitations of strength and knowing 

6 



82 From the Pulpit 

nothing of present hindrances to activity. The service of 
God in heaven will be the perfection of service. 

And, then, how many elements, even beside these, enter 
into the enjoyments of heaven ! 

First of all, the presence of God. God is in the midst of 
them, and is their God. "The Lamb who is in the midst of 
the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living 
fountains of waters." How wonderfully does John describe 
by the Spirit the perfection of bliss ! There is all in heaven 
that could be desired, for God is there, and Christ is there; the 
saints are there, and the angels are there ; heavenly society, 
and perfect fellowship with God and the redeemed and the 
angels. What opportunities for the enjoyments of the mind 
and the heart ! for increasing experience of divine things ! 
What opening of the inmost soul to be absolutely filled with 
the divine incoming and indwelling ! 

And as everything is there that is to be desired, so is 
nothing found there that is not to be desired. "They shall 
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the 
sun light on them, nor any heat.'' " And God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes." "And there shall be no 
more death ; neither sorrow nor crying ; neither shall there 
be any more pain." Such words as these mean nothing less 
than absolute renovation ! " Behold I make all things new." 
It is the passing away of everything that curses this world. 
The slime of the serpent is on all human joys and pleasures ; 
but there is no track or trace of the serpent there ! The 
•blossoms of our human Edens all fade and fall even before 
we pluck them ; but the blooms in that garden never fade 
and never fall. Satan is cast into the lake of fire and 
destroyed. Nothing enters that defiles or works abomination 
or makes a lie. Sin for ever banished ! No death, for 
death itself shall die ! Perfect bliss ! We can say no more 
about it. The Bible says no more about it. The proba- 
bility is that the things that are there, beyond what intimations 



to the Pahn-Brauch, 83 

we have, are simply "unlawful to utter." The voice that 
spoke to John said, " Come up hither, and 1 will shew thee 
things that must be hereafter." They must be seen to be 
known. They cannot be brought down to this sphere, even 
in inspired description, for we have nothing to interpret 
them. We must ourselves be lifted to that sphere and look 
through that open door, or we can have no appreciation of 
these great things of God. 

Our examination would be seriously incomplete if special 
attention were not called to the vision of " the holy city," 
which John records in the twenty-first chapter; and that it 
may be before us more completely, let me read a few verses 
from that chapter: — "And I John saw the holy city, new 
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared 
as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great 
voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God 
is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be 
his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be 
their God." 

In the tenth verse also we have "The holy Jerusalem 
descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of 
God : and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even 
like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great 
and high." And the city had twelve gates ; on the east 
three, on the north three, on the south three, and the west 
three. "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day ; 
for there shall be no night there." 

What does all this mean? There is a heavenly city, "a 
city which hath foundations whose builder and maker is 
God;" and what does "city" mean, but an organized com- 
munity, a place prepared, an everlasting habitation ? There 
is a place prepared for those who love our Lord, and when 
God prepares a place it is sure to be just what is needed, 
absolutely adapted to all tlie wants of his dear children 

What a place that will be for us intellectually ! We are 



84 From the Pulpit 

told, in the thirteenth chapter of the first epistle to the 
Corinthians that, ''Now we see through a glass, darkly; but 
then face to face." The bulk of our knowledge in this world, 
which does not come to us by the observation of our senses, 
we get through the inductive processes of the reason. For 
example, we reason from cause to effect ; and so we discover 
truths, as we say, "by inference." But there we shall not 
reason doubtfully from cause to effect. All knowledge will 
be instinctive and immediate, like the intuitions of the 
human mind and soul. Intelligence will flash on us as a 
lightning glance reveals objects hitherto in the darkness ; 
and so the present measure of our knowledge shall absolutely 
flee away as the dimness of day-dawn departs when the mists 
of the morning flee, and the glorious, full orbed sun shines 
forth in cloudless and matchless splendour ! 

And, as the intellect will find in heaven a home perfectly 
fitted for it, so will the heart of man, and his moral and 
spiritual nature, find in God's city everything that is needed 
for perfect satisfaction and bliss ; the union of the 
aesthetic and of the moral, beauty and virtue, boundless 
perfection in all surroundings with boundless perfection in 
our own nature and capacity to enjoy. 

Notice also that the gates of this city are always open, 
and there are twelve gates — three opening toward each 
point of the compass. What a rebuke to bigotry ! Is there 
any church that would pretend to say that the only entrance 
to heaven is through its particular communion ? Is there 
anyone that dares to say that entrance to heaven is only 
through his particular form of theological dogma? How 
John's vision of the Holy City rebukes all such intolerance 
and uncharity ! From all directions they come, but always 
moving in one direction ! Mark that. The gates face toward 
every quarter ; but from all quarters of the horizon the lines 
of march which pass through those twelve gates meet at one 
poi?itf It matters not whether believing souls come from Asia 



to tJie Pahii-Brarich. 85 

or from Africa, from America or from Europe, from remotest 
lands or islands of the sea. It matters not whether they 
come from Jewish, Pagan, Heathen, or Moslem tribes, or 
from denominations of the Christian church in Christian 
lands. If you have found God in Christ, if your heart has 
been turned from sin towards holiness, if you have felt after 
God, if haply you may find him who is not far from every one of 
us ; if in any way you have learned to rely on God's appointed 
sacrifice, and have been taught of his precious Spirit ; from 
whatever quarter of the earth you come, you have equal 
right to enter through whatever gate of the city, and you 
will find your way to the throne of God and the Lion-lamb, 
and have an equally assured welcome. 

The gates will not be shut at all by day, and as there 
is no night there, they are never shut. What is the use. of 
a shut gate ? It is to keep somebody out or to keep some- 
body in ; and those gates will be always open, for in heaven 
there is no occasion to keep anybody out, and there is no 
occasion to keep anybody in; those that are within do 
not desire to go out, and those that are outside could not 
be induced to come in. I had lately put into my hands 
an infidel tract which seeks to make ridiculous the Christian 
doctrine of hell ; and the b isis of this, as with almost all 
these infidel assaults, is found in a misrepresentation. God 
is conceived as drawing an arbitrary line between one class 
and another class, so that, like a despot, he admits some to 
heaven, and remands others to hell ; whereas the Word of 
God teaches us that, whatever may be said about divine 
sovereignty in human salvation, there is a law of spiritual 
affinity, which is inseparably connected both with heaven 
and hell. When Judas by transgression fell, he went "to 
his own place " ; and, the disciples, " being let go " from 
the presence of the Jewish Council, " went to their own 
company." God ordains in this world a mixed society,, the 
good and the bad together, that the good may restrain the 



86 From the Pulpit 

bad, and that the bad may even discipline the good, and 
so help to perfect the goodness of his own children. But, 
when we leave this world, everyone of us, being loosed, 
goes to his own company : and the company of impenitent 
and rebellious sinners is enough to make a hell, as the 
company of penitent believers would make a heaven. 
We must never overlook the fact of this affinity, and its 
importance in its bearing upon eternal destiny. God may, 
with impunity, leave the gates of his celestial city for evermore 
open. There is no danger of any redeemed souls desiring 
to go out, unless i>erchance there were some message of 
mercy or errand of grace still to be accomplished for our 
Lord and his Christ. Nor will there be any lost soul, 
outside of heaven, that would desire or even consent to 
come in. In my youth I heard a sentimental clergyman 
say, as he concluded a sermon, " If I could stand on the 
battlements of hell and preach this gospel to lost souls and 
fallen angels, what a jubilee there would be in he!l, and 
what a universal acclamation of praise to Almighty God ! " 
There would be no such thing. Not a lost soul or fallen 
angel would enter heaven if ful permission were given, for 
unless the Holy Ghost inclines you to worship, what would 
you do where worship is the eternal and universal employ- 
ment ? And unless the Holy Ghost gives you a spirit of 
willing and loving service for Christ, what would you do 
where only his servants are found, who serve him day and 
night with tireless energy ? And unless you have a heart 
that goes out to God in the affinity of a spiritual nature 
like unto himself, what would you do there, and how could 
you be happy there, even though you were there? Do 
not deceive yourselves. There are some birds whose eggs 
are laid in another bird's nest, and, when the little birds 
are hatched and begin to mature, and their wings begin to 
grow, if they hear the voice of the mother bird, though 
they may never have seen their own mother before, they 



to the Palvi'Braiich. %J 

will leave the nest of the stranger and alien, and fly to the 
shelter of the mother. 

" Rivers to the ocean run, 

Nor stay in all their course ; 
Fire ascending seeks the sun ; 

Both speed them to their source. 
So a soul that's born of God, 

Pants to view his glorious face. 
Upward tends to his abode, 

To rest in his embrace." 

If you have such affinity and attraction toward God, you 
could go nowhere else but to heaven ; and if you have not 
that affinity for God, you could not go to heaven, and you 
could not and would not stay there if you were there. 

Will you not seek now the preparation, that makes it 
possible for you to enter through the gate into the city, and 
go no more out ? 

There appears to be no building in the holy city, not 
even a temple ! If there were buildings seen there John 
has not left it on record. He tells us of the city, of walls 
and gates, but there is no hint of any buildings. This is a 
mystery, and I can only venture to suggest a possible solu- 
tion. When the Feast of Tabernacles was kept, the Jews 
were accustomed to go upon the roofs of their houses and 
celebrate that feast by building booths to commemorate 
their pilgrim sojourn in the wilderness. And, when their 
numbers became too great and the house-tops became 
too small, they gathered in the temple courts, or in the 
open spaces, such as the street that was before the water 
gate, of which we read in the eighth chapter of Nehe- 
miah. In some large open vacant space they erected 
their booths and abode under them for eight days, that they 
might commemorate their journey in the wilderness with the 
tabernacle of God in their midst. When they built these 
booths they were directed in Deuteronomy to build them of 



88 From the PtUpit 

various materials, and four sorts of branches seem to have 
been interwoven into their structure. First, there were fruit 
trees ; second, palm trees ; third, willow trees ; and fourth, 
evergreen trees. If we rightly interpret this record of the 
Old Testament we may find types in all these. The fruit tree 
represents fertility of life in service. The palm tree repre- 
sents a life of victory over temptation and trial. The willow 
tree, that grows only by the brook, represents patient endur- 
ance of sorrow and suffering. And the everlasting green 
seems to speak to us of a life in Christ that never fails or fades. 
And may not the booth of the pilgrim have been itself a type 
of our future reward ? Is it not possible that, within those 
magnificent walls, John saw only an open space, because, 
so to speak, every believer who enters heaven through the 
blood of Jesus Christ nevertheless builds his own booth ? Will 
it not depend upon the measure in which, by grace, you have 
triumphed over trial and temptation, the measure in which 
you have patiently borne the sorrows and the sufferings 
which God has sent upon you, the measure in which you 
have yielded fruit in the service of a holy and active life for 
him, the measure in which you have in yourself represented 
and manifested the undying life of the Holy Spirit ; may it 
not depend in some measure at least upon your earthly 
triumphs and services and endurances what kind of a booth 
you build within the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem in that 
last great Feast of Tabernacles ? 

In that mysterious parable in the sixteenth of Luke we are 
told, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unright- 
eousness ; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into 
everlasting habitations." With all the obscurity that sur- 
rounds that parable, there is at least a plain suggestion in it 
that we should take even material possessions, like money, 
that have in themselves no moral quality, and so use them, 
with a consecrated spirit for the glory of God, that, by-and- 
by, when heart and flesh fail us, we shall find that they have 



to the Palm-Branch. 89 

gone before us and constructed for us everlasting habitations. 
In other words, while salvation is all the free gift of grace, 
your work has its wages, your service has its reward, and the 
measure of your reward will depend on the quantity and the 
quality of your service. There is an old Latin maxim which 
finely represents this, affirming of good works, " non causa 
mcrcedis^ sed regula retributionis'^; which in substance teaches 
that, while grace is the entire ground of our salvation, our good 
works in Christ Jesus determine the measure of our reward 
— the rule of recompense, not the ground of acceptance. 

It is now a week ago, since that devoted man of God who 
has long preached in this pulpit, heard that voice, " Come 
up hither," and, obedient to that voice, not only looked 
through, but went through, the open door into heaven, and 
now knows as he is known. Extended reference to him will be 
made hereafter. But consider what a reward he has ! What 
a booth was built for him by his long and unselfish ministry 
to souls, even before he went into the presence of his Lord. 
Think of his triumphs over temptation, and of the palm 
branches entwined in that booth ! Think of his patient 
endurance of suffering, and of the willow branches woven 
into that booth ! Think of the manifested life of God in 
him, and the evergreen branches that helped to build that 
booth ! Think of the fruits of his long and consecrated 
ministry, and of the fruitful branches that complete that 
booth ! 

I never knew a man whose personal love for Jesus was 
more tender and beautiful than his. When he sat in this 
house of God, or on the platform of great public assemblies, 
and brethren, of whatsoever denomination and from whatso- 
ever parts of the earth, spoke the language of Canaan and 
paid their tribute to the personal majesty and glory of his 
Redeemer, the tears that ran down his face, and the smiles 
that illuminated and transfigured it, showed how his heart 
beat in response to every such tribute of personal love to his 



90 From the Pulpit to the Pabn-Branch. 

Lord. What must have been the rapture of that Pastor of 
yours who has been withdrawn into the glory, when for the 
first time he looked on the face of Jesus ! His ecstacy must 
have surpassed words and even surpassed imagination. He 
now stands with the white-robed throng, and has struck his 
harp to a nobler song than was ever sung on earth. He 
loves somewhat as he was loved. He has dropped sin in 
the perfection of holiness that knows no blemish ; sorrow, 
in the perfection of bliss that knows no alloy ; pain, in the 
perfection of the health that knows no disease; and for 
him death has died ! 

Oh, let us, through this solemn week, look from the open 
grave to the open heaven, and turn our eyes away from 
earthly ashes to heavenly beauties ; let us seek to get up 
where, through this open door, we may get a glimpse of him 
who sits on the throne, come within the shelter of the Bow 
of the Covenant, and touch the Blood that has redeeming 
and sanctifying power \ let us henceforth do whatsoever we 
can in the Name and Power of God to accomplish the whole 
will of our Master, and so accumulate for heavenly service 
and heavenly blessedness all those good works which, 
wrought in Christ Jesus, prepare everlasting habitations for 
God's saints 1 



ik Shf Dag of the Second Mi± 



At eleven o'clock, on Monday mo7-ning^ February %th^ the 
precious burden from Menton was expected to arrive in 
London. The officers of the church and a few friends 
gathered at Victoria Station in good time ; and as the 
appointed hour drew nigh, many of the public began to 
loiter about. A plain hearse and a few ordinary carriages 
were in waiting, and a very few minutes past the time the 
train from Newhaven drew slowly up to the platform. The 
coffin, which had crossed from Dieppe during the night, and, 
in answer to the prayers offered the previous evening, had 
arrived safely, had been taken from its outer case at New- 
haven. There, and also at Lewes, informal meetings were 
held by the ministers of the town. As the beautiful olive- 
wood sarcophagus was quietly and reverently lifted into the 
vehicle, the crowd eagerly pressed forward to look at it. With 
bared heads, and, in many cases, with streaming eyes, the 
people stood, while the magnificent palm-branches, which 
had been sent by Mrs. Spurgeon all the way from the South 
of France, were placed above the coffin. Then, through the 
crowd, which now numbered thousands, the solemn proces- 
sion passed on its way to the Pastors' College. The rain 
soon came down in torrents, and those who were weeping 
thought it meet that the English skies should weep, too, for 
him who had fallen in the fight. Along the route there were 
many who recognized the meaning of the hearse and palm- 
branches, and when the cortege turned into Temple Street, 



92 From the Pulpit 

immediately at the back of the Tabernacle, there was a great 
hurrying to secure a place near the College gates. 

The beloved body was at once borne to the Common 
Room of the College; common, that is to say, in the sense 
of being open to all the students, but not " Common" even 
in that sense that day, and in any other sense common 
nevermore, since it was the first resting place in England of 
the mortal body of the late Charles H addon Spurgeon. 
The room had been beautifully prepared for the reception 
of the remains, plants of the palm species, and white arum 
lilies being placed in profusion around the room ; and now 
there lay that most suggestive olive-wood casket, with the 
official black seals of the Vice- Consul and the Commissary 
of Police, which had been placed upon it at Menton, still 
clear : within it — ah ! how the tears came— there was all 
that was mortal of the beloved Pastor, the honoured Presi- 
dent, the revered friend; the "man greatly-beloved", who 
had the seal of God so clearly upon his forehead, that all 
owned the sanctity of. his life. 

Immediately there was held a short and simple service, 
attended only by the officers of the church and a few invited 
friends. The time was chiefly spent in prayer, bowing low 
before our God. Then a few of the students of the College 
were admitted to gaze upon the coffin, and pay homage to 
the memory of their leader. 

In the afterjioon^ another short service, specially for the 
members of the bereaved family, was held. 

Of the Tabernacle prayer- meeting, in the evenings little 
need be said, except that it was very hirgely attended, and 
was filled with a sense of God's presence. We turned away 
saying, " How awful is this place 1 " Dr. Pierson made a 
personal statement as to the remarkable leading of God with 
reference to his present sphere ; and, after reading the Word 
of God, urged strongly that when God took away Moses, 



to the Palin-BraiicJi. 93 

he always had a Josliua to lead his people ; and it was now 
the attitude of the hour to wait expectantly on him, who 
never fails those who put their trust in him. 

Several earnest prayers were offered for the remaining ser- 
vices of the week. It was desired of God that hundreds 
might be blessed by means of <:hem, and special petition was 
made that the great throngs which would gather might be 
kept calm, and free from any accident. Hearty thanks were 
also rendered for all the streaks of light in the midst of the 
darkness, and for the last favour, in that the sacred dust of 
the dear Pastor had at length been safely brought to the 
scene of his many labours. Mr. Chamberlain sang the late 
Pastor's favourite solo, "Show me thy face": a prayer 
already abundantly answered in his case. 

As " devout men carried Stephen to his burial," it was 
appropriate that, towards ten o'clock at night, a band of the 
students of the Pastors' College should carry the sacred 
burden from the College to its place in the Tabernacle. 
They counted it an honour to be entrusted with the task ; 
and some pews at the front having been removed, the life- 
less clay was deposited in the great building, where the living 
voice had so often been heard in loving persuasion, and in 
outspoken defence of the truth. 

Only those who have taken part in the arrangements for 
the memorial meetings which were to follow, can have any 
conception of the labours involved in carrying them so safely 
to a satisfactory issue. Everyone about the Tabernacle was 
busy from morning to night, and sometimes all night long. 
Each vied with the other in helping forward the necessary 
preliminaries. Until Monday night everything was spon- 
taneous, and witliout much definite pre-arrangement ; but 
the dimensions of the matter in hand required, for the 
future gatherings, the most careful judgment and the great- 
est precision. Nothing was lacking. Both the cool, clear 
head to plan, and the warm, eager hand to execute, were 



94 Front the Pulpit to the Palin-BrancJi. 

available ; and events have proved the wisdom of the plans, 
and the completeness of the organization. Letters poured 
in literally by the thousand, demanding an answer. A most 
miscellaneous assortment of tickets had to be allotted ; care- 
ful arrangements for the comfort and safety of the people 
had to be dtvised, and all the other necessary funeral fix- 
tures had to be made. Now, when all is over, let it be said, 
to the praise of the presiding Spirit of God, that not one 
thing seems to have been forgotten ; not a single accident 
has happened ; not a jarring note has been heard. All those 
who shared in the services are greatly indebted to the 
earnest workers who so willingly and efficiently conceived 
and carried out the excellent arrangements. 



i^ililjutiifi of ^fciitioii. 



From seven o'clock in the morning of TuesJay, February 
gt/i^ until seven in the evening, the Tabernacle was open, and 
two continuous streams of people passed up the aisles to view 
the cof!in enclosing the body of him who had been the 
greatest spiritual force of his generation in London, or 
perhaps in the world. All classes were represented, from the 
very poor to the well-to-do artisan, and from the tradesman 
to men of the city and suburbs. Passing the coffin, over 
which were triumphantly p'aced Mrs. Spurgeon's palm- 
branches, many were moved with evident emotion. It is 
variously estimated that 50,000 to 60,000 persons must have 
visited the spot during the day. This was a very memorable 
day, and a remarkable preface to the days still more memor- 
able which were to follow. 

The precious body was enclosed in a leaden casket, and 
the outer coffin of Menton olive-wood had plates at the head 
and foot, bearing the following inscription : — 
In ever-loving memory of 
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 
Born at Kelvedon, June 19, 183 ], 
Fell asleep in Jesus at Menton, Jan. 31, 1892. 
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept 
the faiih." 

Around the coffin were many beautiful tributes from loving 
hearts. First came a graceful anchor, composed of lilies and 
hyacinths, from the Rev. John Robertson and the congre- 
gation of Gorbals Tabernacle, Glasgow, with the quotation 



96 From tJie Pulpit 

from one of Mr. Spurgeon's most recent letters, " The sun 
shines at length." Next to this was a beautiful wreath, 
" In loving and grateful remembrance," from the children at 
the Stockwell Orphanage. Side by side with this testimony 
of affection was the large floral harp, formed of lilies, with 
golden strings, one of which was significantly broken, which 
had been sent from the sister isle. It was inscribed, " ' He 
being dead yet speaketh,' Hebrews xi. 4. A loving tribute 
to the memory of Pastor C- H. Spurgeon, from the Baptist 
churches of Belfast." Attached to this were a sword and 
trowel fashioned in violets, and accompanied by the follow- 
ing extract from a memorial poem written by Mr. Maxwell: — 

"Oh, master-builder thou, on Zion's wall 

Thy busy Trowel knew no cankering nxst ! 

Thy Sword was keen and double-edged withal 

To smite th' invading foemen to the dust." 

Pastor A. G. Barley, on behalf of Pasteur R. Saillens and 
Christians in Paris, brought a magnificent wreath. 

Flowers and wreaths would have been sent in almost 
incalculable numbers, but it was specially requested that the 
memory of the glorified Pastor should be honoured by gifts 
to the College and Orphanage. In many instances this has 
been done right heartily, and doubtless other friends will yet 
be moved to present similar tokens of esteem and gratitude. 

At the coffin sides were several cards, which attracted 
the notice of many. 

That from Mrs. Spurgeon read : " ' With Christ, which is 
far better.' I will follow thee, my husband. Undying love 
from ' the wife of thy youth.' " 

On behalf of his departed brother, Mr. James Spurgeon 
had a card, "Behold, I die, but God shall be with you," 
Gen. xlviii. 21. 

On behalf of himself and his wife. Pastor J. A. Spurgeon 
had another card, " So an entrance shall be ministered unto 
you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord 



to tJie Palm- Branch. 



97 




98 From tJie Pulpit to the Palm- Branch. 

and Saviour Jesus Christ," 2 Peter i. 11; " If we believe 
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which 
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him," i Thessalonians 
iv. 14. 

Pastor Charles Spurgeon's card read : " His," Rom. xiv. 8 ; 
" Now he is comforted," Luke xvi. 25 ; "In fondest memory 
of the dearest of fathers, from his son Charles." 

The next card read: "Within the veil," Heb. vi. 19 ; 
"Absent .... present with the Lord," 2 Cor. v. 8 ; "In 
affectionate remembrance of dear father, from son Tom." 
This was attached to the coffin by Mr. Charles Spurgeon on 
behalf of his brother in New Zealand. 

Mr. Harrald's card read : " In fondest memory of my 
dearest earthly friend, my beloved Pastor and father in 
the faith, and ' the good soldier of Jesus Christ ', whose 
armour-bearer desires to be faithful unto death as his 
captain was." 

The card of Miss E. H. Thorne (Mrs. Spurgeon's com- 
panion) read : " In loving memory of the best and kindest 
friend I ever had on earth." 

On the black drapery of the upper rostrum was the very 
significant admonition, " Remember the word that I said 
unto you being yet present with you ; " while, on the 
lower platform, the text, " I have fought a good fight, I have 
finished my course, I have kept the faith," was inscribed. 
None could question that it was a true description of the 
life of the man of God whom they had come to honour ; a 
marble bust of whom looked down upon them from between 
the one platform and the other. 

On Tuesday, as the people passed in file to view the 
coffin, a copy of Mr. Spurgeon's sermon for the previous 
week, "God's Will about the Future" (No. 2,242), 
was given to each, as an appropriate memento of the 
Qccasion. 



JUlfinorial Jltcctiitg 

FOR MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH. 



On Wednesday morning, February loth, 1892, com- 
mencing at II o'clock, the service arranged specially for 
members of the church and its organizations was held, 
the Tabernacle being filled. The chair was taken by the 
Rev. J. A. Spurgeon, pastor in charge. 

Deacon S. R. Pearce, Superintendent of the Metropolitan 
Tabernacle Sunday-school, opened the meeting with a 
synipathetic prayer, which gave a fitting key-note to the 
meeting which was to follow ; after which 

Rev. William Stott, formerly assistant pastor, announced 
the hymn, " AH hail the power of Jesus' name," which was 
sung with solemn feeling. 

Rev. Joseph Angus, D.D., Principal of Regent's Park 
College, who was introduced by the Chairman as " a former 
pastor of this church, my venerated tutor and lifelong 
friend," then said : " Of all meetings connected with these 
services, I deem it the greatest privilege to be allowed to 
take part in this. You are assembled to-day as a Christian 
Church, and you have reckoned me as still, in some sense, 
one of your members. I believe, that on your church -roll, 
my name will be found at the close of the year J837. I was 

L.ofC. 



lOO From the Pulpit 

then only a lad ; had just finished my course in Edinburgh ; 
and was invited to become your pastor. For two years the 
pastoral relationship was sustained, amid the kind love 
and prayers and counsel of a devoted people. At the 
close of those years my happy pastorate closed with deep 
regret on my part, and with very hearty sympathy on the 
part of the people. In those two years one hundred and 
twenty members were added to tlie church. 

" There were then, I remember, in connection with the 
church, the families of Warmington, Richards, Gale, 
Pewtress, Olney, and Burgess — names still fragrant in this 
place; their children and their children's children have 
been for years connected either with this church or with 
sister churches. Nothing done in those days can be 
compared with your recent history ; but in the faith, the 
love, and the devoted work of that day, there was every- 
thing to cheer the heart of the pastor. When I was 
called to become secretary of our Mission it was one of 
the severest wrenches I have ever known. For fifty years 
now I have been severed from the church, working else- 
where, but I have been in constant touch with some of 
its members and with its pastor. I have shared your 
sorrows, and your success ; and I feel that it is a fitting 
thing that I should be here to-day, in this deepest sorrow of 
all, to commend the church and all its agencies to the 
guidance and blessing of our divine Lord. As I stand here 
I see before me the faces of the dead almost as distinctly as 
the faces of the living ; it is a blessed memory and a blessed 
spectacle ! 

" I have been struck by the appropriateness of the Scrip- 
ture text which you have inscribed over your beloved 
friend : * I have fought a good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith.' As soldier, as runner, and 
as steward, he has no reason to be ashamed. We thank 
God for all his faithfulness, and we gather from his life fresh 



to the Palm-Branch. lOi 

incentive to completer consecration. May I venture to sug- 
gest a motto appropriate to your condition as a church, which, 
I trust, may commend itself to your hearts : * Remember 
them who are your leaders, who have spoken to you the 
word of God, whose faith copy, considering the end of their 
conversation.' 

** One thought besides. We are here this morning to show 
our affection and respect for all that was mortal of our 
beloved friend. We mean to follow his bier to-morrow to 
the grave, but please remember, now, that your pastor is not 
here at all. All that was mortal of him is here ; but he 
himself has become immortal. Sometimes men speak of 
following Christians to their tomb ; sometimes they adopt 
language still more heathenish, and speak as if our loved 
ones were resting peaceably in their graves ; but I affirm 
that the Christian man is never put into his grave at all. 
'Absent from the body,* he is forthwith ' present with the 
Lord.* We cannot but feel the deepest affection for all that 
was mortal of our dear friend, and pay our homage to his 
name ; but he is no more here : he is * for ever with the 
Lord.* 

" I believe that he misses his family ; I believe that he 
misses his orphans so dear to his heart ; I believe that he 
misses his students who are so greatly indebted to him. He 
misses his church, which was, in a large degree, the source 
of his strength; he misses the enquirers and the converts 
who were the joy of his heart, as they are the joy of the 
heart of every true minister. I cannot but believe that he 
misses them all, and it may be that in that land he knows as 
little about them as we know about him. But whatever be 
the disadvantages of the loss of the earthly relationship, to 
be with Christ is far better. His sins are behind him ; his 
weakness is behind him ; his cares and distractions are 
behind him ; and he is for ever with the Lord. * Wherefore 
comfort one another with these words.* ** 



102 From the Pulpit 

Rev. A. T. PiERSON, D.D., announced by the chairman 
as *' My dearly loved colleague in the service of this great 
people, a man whom to know is to trust up to the hilt," 
said : — 

This is a unique gathering. It is the one meeting that 
I would rather be at, of all the gatherings of this week, 
for now the family meet round the bier to weep and pray 
and talk together about the spiritual father and brother who 
a few days since was in the land of the dying, but is now in 
the land of the living. I thank you that you have included 
me in the family gathering, if not as "one born out of due 
time," yet as one that you have so gently and generously 
adopted into your family circle, and who shares deeply in 
your profound grief. But, before I say what God has put 
in my heart, I must unburden myself of the last message at 
hand from dear Mrs. Spurgeon, who cannot be here to-day, 
and from whom, perhaps without design on her part, I have 
only this morning received a beautiful, tender, and sisterly 
letter, a portion of which certainly belongs to you. I will 
omit all the personal references in it, and read only what she 
says about her beloved and herself. The letter was written 
last Lord's-day, and is as follows : — 

Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon's Letter to Dr. Pierson. 

*' I want to tell you how perfectly happy my beloved was 
during the three delightful months of his residence here. 
The joy of bringing me to the place he loved so well, and 
showing me eagerly all the beautiful scenery in which he so 
delighted, was greatly enhanced by the assurance that you 
were standing in his place at home. How little we thought 
what God meant to do with his dear servant when he called 
you from beyond the seas ! but our faith shall not fail. * He 
hath done all things well ' ; and though the future, both to 
you and to me, may seem clouded and uncertain, we will 
trust and not be afraid. With me it is an absolute necessity 



to the Palm-Branch, 103 

that I keep looking up. * He is not here ; he is risen,' is 
as true of my beloved as of my beloved's Lord. To-day he 
has been a week in heaven. Oh, the bliss, the rapture, of 
seeing his Saviour's face ! Oh, the welcome home which 
awaited him as he left this sad earth ! Not for a moment 
do I wish him back, though he was dearer to me than 
tongue can tell. I shall pray much for you all during the 
week of grief. I feel myself like a shipwrecked mariner 
who has with difficulty reached the shore, and now looks 
with streaming eyes and fainting heart on others still 
struggling through those awful waves of sorrow. With 
Christian love and intensest sympathy, 

Your grateful friend, 

Susie Spurgeon." 

We have shut the doors this morning against the world 
and the churches at large, that this great family may have a 
little familiar and close intercourse about the dead. This 
beloved man of God was to us in this family circle a 
preacher of the gospel. What a preacher ! I am persuaded 
that the century has known no man that was his equal in 
the simple and persuasive utterance of the gospel message. 
It was a heroic resolve on his part * not to know anything 
amongst you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' But it 
was a rarer success on his part that, knowing nothing but 
Jesus Christ, and him crucified, he gathered and held the 
largest congregation within the bounds of the Christian 
world, for over forty years. 

There are some, in these days, that would depreciate him, 
as a man that had no broad horizon — as a man whose range 
and scope were narrow. But such a verdict reacts upon 
those who depreciate him, for it shows how little they 
appreciate the genius of his ministry. The Campsie fiddler, 
when he heard Paganini, went home and broke and burned 
his own fiddle, not simply because that master violinist 



104 From the Pulpit 

had brought out of his wooden box the most marvellous 
melodies and harmonies that he had ever heard, but because 
on one string he had executed melodies and harmonies that 
no other living performer had been able to bring out of all four 
strings. And the glory of Charles Haddon Spurgeon in his 
preaching of the gospel was that, from one string, ' Christ, 
and him crucified,' he evoked the melodies and harmonies 
to which a whole orchestra of intellectual instruments is not 
equal. The vibrations of that chord ran from the depths 
of the most profound mysteries to the heights of the most 
celestial glories. The combinations and the variations that 
he executed upon that one string have held the church of 
God entranced, and the world in awe. I pray you to notice 
that the limitation of his ministry was the glory of his 
ministry. He had the bravery not to know a thousand 
things that he might have known. He had the bravery to 
make the Bible the one book that he studied, and the 
Christ of God the one theme on which he discoursed. 
And you who for forty years have listened to his ministry 
will have found that out of that one string he brought every 
strain of instruction, every voice of consolation, every 
message, tender, pathetic, sublime, and beautiful, that is 
needful for the mind, the heart, the conscience, or the spirit, 
of a child of God. 

And I would have you notice also, in uttering these simple 
tributes to his memory, that he was not only a great preacher 
and evangelist, he was also a great Pastor. There are many 
evangelists that have the advantage that they only preach, 
and that they preach to audiences so different that they can 
use the same material over and over again, repeating, and 
completing as they repeat. Whitefield preached the same 
sermon over, fifty or one hundred times, improving it at 
every delivery ; but Charles Haddon Spurgeon could not in 
this manner repeat himself. For thirty-seven years he has 
given his sermons to the public, and when they have been 



to the Palm-Branch. 105 

pronounced in this place they have been, in a sense, lost to 
him for future use, for they have been given in the wider 
pulpit of the press to a more magnificent audience than it 
was possible for him to reach even here. Notwithstanding 
the fact that the conditions of his ministry thus forbade the 
ordinary repetition of sermons, he has gone on speaking 
with perpetual freshness on this one perpetual theme ; and 
yet the ministries of the last year among you were more 
precious than the ministries of any previous part of his life. 

Was not the secret of his ministry in two little utterances 
that he emphasized in his words, and especially in his life? 
When Dr. McAll went to Paris to begin his great work for 
the evangelization of the French people, he could speak only 
two sentences in French, and those not with Parisian accent 
either. One was * God loves you,' and the other was ' I love 
you.' Upon those two sentences Charles Haddon Spurgeon 
built his ministry. His whole gospel preaching was a pro- 
clamation, *God loves you;' and his whole pastoral and 
personal Hfe was the affirmation, * I love you.' The people 
learned of the love of God through his lips, and were 
drawn to him by the personal love that he had to souls, as 
exhibited in all that he did and in all that he said. 

I would remind you also that he was a great organizer 
and leader. Fifty mission halls or benevolent organizations, 
in some way or other connected with this church, yet 
survive, which owe their existence, under God, to his 
suggestion and organizing power. I need not remind this 
family of God, of his dear brother, James A. Spurgeon, who 
has been so marvellously fitted to complement and supple- 
ment all his labours, and has been so closely associated 
with him, as John Wesley and Charles Wesley were asso- 
ciated, a little more than a century ago. Nor need I 
remind you how these two beljved men of God, like right 
hand and left hand in the service of the Master, have 
founded the Pastors' College, which has had eight hundred 



io6 From the Pulpit 

students in its halls, and is represented on every continent 
of the globe. I need not tell you how these two brothers 
have likewise originated and maintained, through God, the 
Stockwell Orphanage, which at present has over four 
hundred boys and girls within its walls, doubly orphaned 
now that another father has been taken from them. Nor 
need I remind you of the Almshouses and the multitude of 
other noble and philanthropic works which owe, if not their 
existence, their subsistence, to this manly and Christian 
heart which now has stopped beating. 

We have nothing to say to-day about the work accom- 
plished by our departed brother beyond the bounds of this 
church. That will come in review on some subsequent 
occasion. I Hmit myself now to what he was to this church, 
wiih its organizations and its institutions. 

There was nothing in which C. H. Spurgeon shone 
more than in his character as a true Christian behever. 
First and last, what he was as a preacher, what he was as a 
pastor, what he was as a worker, he owed to what he was as 
a believer in Christ Jesus. I do not wonder that the 
children in the Orphanage and in the Sunday-school were all 
drawn to him. I do not wonder that they understood him, 
for I never knew a Christian believer who was more, in the 
very best sense, himself a little child. Yes, it was a child 
that died on the 31st of January, nearly fifty-eight years old. 
He never lost his child-likeness, though he had lost his 
childishness; he carried all that is most sublime from 
childhood into the period of his manhood and into his 
maturer years. 

Do you ask me what was the secret of his power as a 
Christian behever ? I think that the answer to that ques- 
tion is exceedingly simple. We shall not lose it even in 
analysis, for, at the bottom of all, it was that he had an 
overwhelming sense of the powers of the world to come. 
The invisible things were visible to his faith. The future and 



to the Palm-Branch. 107 

eternal were like present and temporal to him. He went 
into his closet and handled God, he saw that it was he 
himself, and he came out with the vivid impressions of 
communion with the invisible and the eternal. If you will 
take that single secret you will find that it underlies every 
other secret of his personal life and personal ministry. We 
need not look very far to find out why he was what he was. 
He took the Bible, and the whole Bible, as the inspired 
book of God ; he took Christ, and the whole Christ, as the 
justifier, sanctifier and redeemer; he believed with all his 
heart; and every utterance was a speech born of deep 
conviction. To the ingenuity of intellectual genius, he 
added the ingenuousness of moral genius, and produced 
first and foremost, upon all who heard him, the impression 
that what he said he believed, and what he beHeved he 
believed with all his heart. ^ Hence, as a great ocean 
steamer draws smaller craft in its wake, even unbelievers 
and sceptics were in a measure brought to fall into the line 
of his teaching, because of the positiveness of it, which was 
born of a defined and confirmed faith. 

Suff"er me to say one word more. I may the more fitly 
speak of his sick and dying bed, because I belong to another 
nationality and to another branch of the Christian church in 
a distant land. Round about that sick and dying bed, from 
May last to the end of January of this year, for more than 
eight months, the whole Christian church was bowed in 
solicitude, as round about his bier to-day, from all quarters 
of the earth. Christian believers bow in tears. I think that 
not since Christ ascended has there been a more pathetic 
illustration of the power of one believing child of God to 
attract to him millions upon millions of believers, upon whose 
faces he has never looked. Ten thousand messages and 
letters of sympathy, sets of resolutions and telegrams of 
enquiry came to his home here and in Menton during the 
time I have specified. There was not a branch of the Christian 



io8 From the Pulpit 

church that did not furnish representatives in this pathetic 
instance of condolence, either by personal calls or by com- 
munications through telegraph or post. From the Archbishops 
of Canterbury and York, down to the humblest vicar and 
curate, tributes have been paid to him ; from all the branches 
of the Baptist, Methodist, Congregational and Presby- 
terian churches, and from every other denomination of 
Christians, expressions of sympathy have been received. 
Yea, even the Jewish rabbi begged him to understand that 
the Jews were lifting prayer to the God of Abraham, of 
Isaac, and of Jacob for his restoration. There has never, 
I repeat, been a scene, of which I have any knowledge, so 
pathetically sublime m the course of the eighteen hundred 
years of Christian history. Verily * prayer was made without 
ceasing of the church unto God for him.' 

O my beloved friends, you do not know all you have 
had in him, and you do not yet know what you have lost. 
But, blessed be the name of God, what is your loss is his 
great gain. 

What, in this great crisis, are we to do ? We must go and 
stand by the Jordan, where he stood ; take the mantle of 
the ascended man of God ; smite the waters with that 
mantle, and say, * Where is the Lord God of Spurgeon ! 
He still survives, and is ready to interpose for us. 

Be sure that you take these Orphans to your heart, and 
see that in their comparatively fatherless condition they find 
the whole church here like a nursing mother. See that you 
take the Pastors' College to your heart, and ensure a genera- 
tion of noble and faithful ministers of Christ to carry out 
the line of teaching, and to defend the gospel, that has made 
this pulpit illustrious. See that no work under which the 
shoulders and heart of Charles Haddon Spurgeon stood as 
a support shall fall to-day because that support has been 
withdrawn. I venture to prophesy that, if such is the spirit 
of your faith and your consecration, God will, in some 



to the Palm-Branch. 109 

mysterious manner, bless to you the departure of his servant, 
even as he has blessed his long presence among you. 

Mr. J. W. Harrald, Private Secretary to Mr. Spurgeon, 
to whom the chairman paid a just tribute, calling upon him 
as "A dear friend, one of my brother's dearest helpers, 
who put wisdom and strength, gentleness and tenderness 
unrivalled, at my brother's disposal by night and by day, 
in life and in death," announced the hymn, — 
" Servant of God, well done 1 
Rest from thy loved employ ; 
The battle fought, the victory won, 
Enter thy Master's joy. 

** The voice at midnight came ; 

He started up to hear : 
A mortal arrow pierced his frame ; 
He fell, but felt no fear. 

"His spirit with a bound 

Left its encumbering clay ; 
His tent, at sunrise, on the ground 

Without a tenant lay. 
*' The pains of death are past ; 

Labour and sorrow cease ; 
And life's long warfare closed at last, 

His soul is found in peace. 

" Soldier of Christ, well done ! 

Praise be thy new employ ; 
And, while eternal ages run. 
Rest in thy Saviour's joy." 

Being peculiarly appropriate to the circumstances of the 
beloved Pastor's entrance into rest, this hymn was sung 
most heartily by the whole congregation. 

Mr. Harrald, to whose words a special interest attached, 
as he had been by the side of the beloved sufferer to the end, 
then said : " I feel that I am here to-day as the represent- 
ative of our dearly-loved and deeply-lamented senior 
Pastor, and of his beloved and bereaved wife. We meet 



no From the Pulpit 

to-day, as we have been reminded, in the capacity of a 
family. Therefore, speaking to you as members of the 
family, I wish to bear testimony, for dear Mrs. Spurgeon's 
sake and on her behalf, to the sustaining grace of God 
which has been granted to her, and to all of us who have 
sorrowed with her, away in the sunny land. The hymn 
which we have just sung speaks of ' the call at midnight *, 
and close on midnight the call came to him whom we 
mourn. Many of you perhaps know that our beloved 
Pastor said to everyone who asked him when he thought 
of being back, *" I shall be home in February^ and nearly an 
hour before the time that he had himself fixed, he was at 
home^ not at * Westwood ', but at his heavenly home, ' for 
ever with the Lord.' As the five of us knelt by his bedside, 
in the little room at Menton, after he had entered into 
rest, I felt that I ought to lead the little company in 
prayer for all who had been bereaved ; but we were 
touched beyond expression, as we still continued on our 
knees, to hear the voice of the loved one so sorely 
bereaved, thanking God for the many years that she had 
had the unspeakable joy of having such a precious husband 
lent to her. You have heard from her beautiful letter 
something of what the past three months, have been to 
her. We could go farther back, and speak of the past 
seven months ; for seven months ago she gave her husband 
up to his Lord, but the Lord lent him to her a little longer. 
His dear wife always reckoned that those seven months 
were all extra, and so she was ready when the Master 
wanted the loan back again for ever. If there could have 
been any wish of his heart that otherwise would have 
remained unsatisfied, it was, as she tells you in the letter, 
that together they might sit under the palm-trees of his 
lovely Menton; that they might walk beneath the olives 
that flourish there ; and that they might sojourn a little 
while by the tideless sea, beneath the cloudless sky, and 



to the Palm- Branch, III 

amid those scenes he so dearly loved, mainly because they 
reminded him of *Thy land, O Immanuel ! ' Those last three 
months seemed to make their earthly bliss complete ; hus- 
band and wife often said that it was their honeymoon over 
again. They celebrated together at Menton their thirty-sixth 
wedding-day, also Mrs. Spurgeon's birthday, and from the 
family standpoint — and that is where we meet to-day — it 
was all that one could have desired. And oh, though it 
was sad for us to lose him there, we felt that, at least, one 
regret would be spared to us ; had he stayed at home we 
should all have said, * If he had but gone to Menton, 
he might have recovered ! ' But that was not to be. 

" You cannot tell all that those three months at Menton 
mean. Little by little it will come out, and you will be 
thankful as you see how true is the text which has been 
placed on one end of the coffin. The question has been 
put to me already, *When did the Pastor say to you, 
" I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I 
have kept the faith " ? ' Let it be known, as distinctly as 
possible, the Pastor did ?tot say it at all, I have taken 
every opportunity I could get to say that the last message he 
was able to deliver to the congregation, or to anyone, was 
that remarkable message telegraphed to you on the very 
day that you were bringing in thankofferings for his partial 
recovery. Read that message again, in the light of what I 
am certain he knew at the time, and then see how character- 
istic it was. 

" He and Mrs. Spurgeon were talking together, and they 
called me into the bedroom. They said, 'There is a 
little matter of business for you to attend to,' and then our 
dear Pastor dictated to me a telegram to be sent to the 
Tabernacle. He began, ' Self and wife ^ ;€'^oo, thankoffering ' ; 
but altering the wording, he said, 'No; put it, ";^ioo, 
hearty thaiikoffering towards Tabernacle General Expenses, 
Love to all friends' 



112 From the Pidpit 

*' I waited for more, but he had fallen asleep. That 
terrible unconsciousness, that soon seized him in its dreaded 
grasp, was already beginning to affect him. I waited, 
perhaps half an hour, and when he awoke, I said — 

" ' You did not finish the telegram.' 

*' ' Hasn't it gone yet ? ' he asked. 

'''No,' I replied; 'there is plenty of time. They do 
not meet at the Tabernacle till four this afternoon; and I 
could not send it off without telling them how you are, for 
all will be anxious to know about you.' 

" In his own characteristic way, he said, * Let them find 
Old; that is all I am going to say,^ Was it not just like him ? 
Of course, I put a few words at the end of his telegram, 
that the friends at home might know how ill he was ; but his 
last message was in harmony with his whole life — all for 
others, and not a word about himself. Was not his action 
characteristic even to the end ? 

"In most solemn conversation with me, several days 
before that, he had said, * My work is do fie ' ; and he began 
talking of certain matters which no man would speak of, 
least of all such a man as he, unless he was certain that his 
work was ended. Yet, knowing that he was upon his dying 
bed, and perhaps, for aught one can tell, knowing that this 
was the last message he would ever send, he only said, ^Hearty 
thafikoffering.'' Notice that he did not say ^for recovery ' ; 
every word was carefully weighed. *• Love to all friends.'' 

" This was his last message to you, and it is no use asking 
for any other. There is no other. We watched day and 
night with him. Oh, what would we not have given if we could 
have had another word? We hoped against hope that 
there would have been some other final message, but no 
other was given. There you have it : * Hearty thafik- 
offering. Love to all friends.'' 

" Do you ask, how did that text, * I have fought a good 
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept th§ faith," 



to the Palm-Branch. 113 

come where it is ? It was my sad and mournful duty to 
submit to dear Mrs. Spurgeon certain matters which needed 
attention, and amongst other things, I took to her the inscrip- 
tion I had prepared for the coffin. It ended with this text. 
As soon as I read it, she said, in her own inimitable way — 

" * How is it that you always think of just what I have 
been thinking ? There is no other text for him.' 

" So the text was placed where it is; but our dear Pastor 
would never have thought of applying those words to himself. 

" * I have fought a good fight.'' You know how true that is. 

^* ^ I have fifiished my course.^ It is no broken column 
that we have to rear to his memory. His work is finished. 

" * / have kept thefaith.^ And everyone here and through- 
out the whole world knows how bravely he did it. 

" You may know something more also. Many voices will 
say this — but none ought to say it more distinctly than I do — 
that within that olive-casket there lies all that is mortal of a 
martyr for the truth's sake. If you will look in your Sword 
and Trowel for February, you will see a note on * The Bible 
and Modern Criticism ', and at the end you will read what 
the Pastor wrote with his own hand but a few days before he 
told me that his work was finished. Concerning that great 
controversy, which has now cost him his life, he says there 
that he does not regret his action, * even though an almost 
fatal illness might be reckoned as part of the price.* We 
must now take out the word ' almost ', for * part of the . 
price ' paid by our beloved Pastor, in his contention for the 
faith, was his own life. For the truth's sake he counted not 
his life dear unto him ; and again and again he has said, in 
the presence of those who can bear unflinching testimony 
to the fact, that, if necessary, he would gladly have laid 
down his life a thousand times for the sake of the gospel, 
for the defence of which he was ' set ' as much as the 
apostle Paul ever was. 

^* You may imagine how much there is that one would 

8 



1 14 From the Pulpit 

wish to say to you personally ; but I must say to the officers 
and members of this church and congregation, and to other 
friends throughout the world, on dear Mrs. Spurgeon's 
behalf, how deeply thankful she is for all the tokens of love 
she has received during the last eight or nine months \ first 
the loving messages of sympathy, then of congratulation, and 
now of condolence. They have been simply overwhelming ; 
and she can but ask that through every public channel her 
thanks may be conveyed throughout the whole world, for 
all the love and all the sympathy which have been showered 
upon her so royally. 

*' But has not our dear Pastor a last word for us ? Ay, 
that he has ; and here again I must link his name with that 
of his beloved wife. You know what, by a most remarkable 
overruling of the providence of God, last week's sermon 
was — ('God's Will about the Future,' No. 2,242). 
Even more remarkable, the Pastor's message for this very 
week is what Mrs. Spurgeon has herself entitled, * His own 
Funeral Sermon ' (No. 2,243). The text is, *For David, 
after he had served his own generation by the will of God, 
fell on sleep.' That sermon is his special message for 
to-day. 

"But among peculiarly tender memorials of our glorified 
Pastor, there are some words, written by his own hand, as 
clearly as ever he wrote, in this little book, which I hold 
in my hand. It is now a very precious treasure, for it tells 
us something of what he wanted to say before he was taken. 
I do not say that these words are all his own composition — 
some evidently are not — but they are gathered together, and 
some of them doubtless composed by him. They were put 
just where I should be the first to find them, in order, 
doubtless, that they might come as his message to you. 
Put these couplets together, and listen to the Holy Spirit's 
message to you, for by these words, * he, being dead, yet 
speaketh.' 



to the Palm-Branch, 115 

*' * No cross, no crown ; no loss, no gain ; 

They first must suffer, who would reign.* 
** 'He best can part with life without a sigh, 

Whose daily living is to daily die.' 
* 'Youth builds for age ; age builds for rest : 

Who builds for heaven, will build the best.' 
*• * Poor they may live, but rich they die, 

Whose treasure is laid up on high.' 
'* 'Oh, the sweet joy that sentence gives^ 

"I know that my Redeemer lives I " ' 
" 'We cannot, Lord, thy purpose see. 

But all is well that's done by ihee.' 

** The last word is — 

** * Prepared be 
To follow me.' 

"Oh, may every one of us follow him, as he followed his 
Lord ! " To which the congregation responded with a 
hearty "Amen." 

The Rev. V. J. Charlesworth, called upon to read the 
Scriptures, as a long-tried helper and friend, the Head- 
Master of the Orphanage, said : *' There are lingering 
echoes which will now find a voice in the words of the 
inspired apostle, and which all must feel so truly applicable 
to the beloved Pastor who has gone. 

" * I determined not to know anything among you save 
Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' 

" ' His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in 
vain.' 

'"But as God is true, our word toward you was not 
** Yea " and " Nay." For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who 
was preached among you . . . was not "Yea" and 
'* Nay," but in him was " Yea,"' 

" ' I have not shunned to declare unto you all the 
counsel of God.' 

'* * The gospel which was preached of me is not aftei 



ii6 From tJie Pulpit 

man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught 
it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.' 

*• ' By grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of 
yourselves : it is the gift of God.' 

'' ' Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast 
heard of me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.' 

" ' Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, un- 
moveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, 
forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the 
Lord.' 

" * O, come let us worship and bow down ; let us kneel 
before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God, and we are 
the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.' 

" * The Lord of hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is 
our refuge.' 

*' ' He that spared not his own Son, but deHvered him 
up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us 
all things ? ' 

" * For whether we live, we nve unto the Lord ; and 
whether we die, we die unto the Lord : whether we live 
therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.' 

" ' Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his 
saints.* 

'* * He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even 
length of days for ever and ever. His glory is great in thy 
salvation : honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him. 
Thou hast made him most blessed for ever : thou hast made 
him exceeding glad with thy countenance.' 

*' ' Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast 
afflicted us. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and 
thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty oAhe Lord 
our God be upon us : and establish thou the work of our 
hands upon us ; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.' 

" ' Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : they shall prosper 
that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity 



to the Palm-Branch. 117 

within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, 
I will now say, Peace be within thee.' " 

Rev. T. W. Medhurst, who was the senior student of the 
College, entering in the year 1855, and who has been ever 
since an honoured minister of the Word, being called upon, 
led in a heartfelt and heart-moving prayer. 

Deacon T. H. Olney, the treasurer of the church, one 
of the eldest of the officers whom Mr. James Spurgeon, in 
introducing Mr. Olney, spoke of as " a band of men whom 
God has touched ; the excellent of the earth in whom we 
all delight," said : — " In the presence of the great sorrow 
and the crushing calamity which have come home to the 
hearts of each one present, there is no need to-day to set 
aside seats for special mourners. We are all special 
mourners. I desire your sympathy and your prayers at 
this time, for I am not a practised speaker, but I have been 
selected on the present occasion because for so many years 
I have had the privilege and the honour of being associated 
with our dear Pastor in his work. My brethren in office 
have asked me to be a witness on their behalf of the loving 
esteem and reverence in which we have always held our 
beloved leader. We never had a difference of opinion with 
him. What happiness that is to look back to 1 There was 
never a strife, and never an unkind word. 

" I do not wish in any way to be thought a critic of our 
dear pastor. I loved him too well for that. George 
Herbert says, 'The minister should be the judge, not the 
hearer,' and I agree with his sentiment. But I would add 
my honest testimony to the worth of our beloved friend. 

"My opening remark about him is that he was first 
of all a man of faith, a man of humble trust. He 
retained much of the child in his nature. God was 
his Father, and his trust was as simple and childlike 



Ii8 From the Pulpit 

at the end of his career as it was at the beginning. I 
had the honour of hearing his first sermon in London, and 
he then struck the keynote of his ministry. The sermon 
was from the Epistle of James, the first chapter, and the 
seventeenth verse : * Every good gift and every perfect gift 
is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, 
with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.' 
It was a marvellous sight, that morning at New Park Street 
Chapel, when he came into the pulpit. He had the dew of 
his youth upon him then. Few of you can remember him 
as the wonderful youthful preacher \ but he spoke with the 
same confidence in the first sermon, and with the same 
eloquence, as in later years. He spoke afterwards, perhaps, 
with riper judgment, but never with greater power than 
when he spoke to those eighty or one hundred people 
in 1853. 

"My next remark about him is, that he was a man of 
prayer. He did not depend merely upon his own prayers, 
but he always invited the prayers of his people. When the 
prayer-meeting was well attended, he expected a blessing. 
I will try to prove that to you in his own words. When 
the congregations of the church began to increase at New 
Park Street, did he say, * I am a popular preacher. I am 
a successful man ? ' No ; this is what he wrote to me : 
* The house was filled with hearers ; many souls were 
converted ; and I always give glory to God first, and then 
to praying people.' 

" My third testimony about him is, that he was a grateful 
man. He was grateful not only for the prayers of his 
people, but for their offerings. When he was away from 
home, I used to send him a telegram every Monday morning 
with an account of the proceedings of the previous Sabbath, 
and he wrote to me that he valued those telegrams very 
much. This postcard was sent to me from Menton in 
answer to such a telegram: 'The news of the offering 



to the Palm-Branch. 119 

rings the bells in my heart. What a good people I 
have.' 

** The fourth testimony I have to bear is, that the greatest 
joy that our dear Pastor ever experienced, was in the 
salvation of souls, in the increase of the church, and in 
the glory of Christ's kingdom. I will read you an extract 
from a private letter sent to me : ' Your telegram was one of 
the grandest ever transmitted on the wires. It made my 
heart sing, " Hallelujah ! " Blessed be the Lord for the 
care of his church ! Dr. Pierson has sent me the outlines 
of his sermons, which prove that he deals in the finest of 
the wheat.' My telegram had told him that forty-nine had 
joined the church ; I think it was in December ; and his 
reply shows the joy with which it filled his heart. He adds, 
* May the forty-nine new friends be a real accession of 
strength.' To which we all add, * Amen.' 

" I bear record of him, in the fifth place, that he had a 
very kindly esteem of the church officers by whom he was 
surrounded. An extract from another letter will make this 
clear : — * May the Lord richly bless you. Never man had 
a kinder company of friends, or felt more bound to them. 
Let us pray for a blessing exceeding all that we have 
hitherto known. It may be had. It will be had. ' 

" I must also bear testimony that he inspired very great 
confidence in us all. Whatever he recommended we 
accepted at once. I can remember the building of this 
great Tabernacle, the opening of the Stockwell Orphanage, 
and other things which we have not time to refer to. 
Many of the great undertakings might, at first, have seemed 
imprudent ; but his plans were always well matured. They 
were always thought over beforehand, and prayed upon, 
before they were introduced to us. We, as Deacons, had 
very little to do but to back him up. 

*' In the next place, he drew out very devoted service. 
I do not think that he had many drones about him, they 



120 From the Pidpit 

would not have been happy in his company. He always 
set us to work, and started us in such a happy way that we 
have kept on at it. You know for how many years I have 
been the treasurer of the church, and you know with 
regard to the other officers associated with him, how con- 
tinuous their labours have been. My dear brother, Mr. 
Joseph Passmore, has been with him from the beginning. 
The Pastor won our affection and kept it. 

**The last point is very tender ground, but we can bear 
a true witness. He was a most charming companion. 
You in the church knew many of his excellences, but those 
of us who were intimate with him and were able to enjoy 
his private friendship, know what a rich treasury of con- 
versation he possessed. His humour was always humour 
without baseness. For instance, note one of his remarks to 
his Deacons. He said, 'You are the best Deacons that 
any minister was ever blessed with, but do not be proud. 
You are no better than you ought to be.' This will give 
you a sample of the terms on which we were. Whenever 
we met together we were a happy, united band,, with 
confidence in our leader, that he was trusting in the Lord 
and would lead us to fresh victory. Some of those who 
have been here with him have gone on before, and I have 
thought with what pleasure they would welcome him on 
the eternal shore. Earth is poorer, heaven is richer, for 
his loss. May it tend to draw our hearts and affections 
heavenward. If so, the death of our Pastor will be blessed 
to us, indeed. 

Elder J. T. Dunn, on behalf of his fellow officers, said : — 
" There are two brethren my seniors. One is laid aside on 
the bed of sickness, and the other is too feeble to make his 
voice heard in so large a congregation ; therefore I have 
been asked to speak to-day. My personal reminiscences of 
our beloved Pastor have only helped to endear him more 



to the Palm-Branch. 121 

and more as the years have rolled on. For some thirty-four 
years I have been identified as his helper in the work of the 
church. My recollections of him, so far as regards his 
tender sympathy and his kindness, which is beyond ex- 
pression, are very vivid to-day. He was thoughtful in the 
highest degree, and hearty in all his expressions of brotherly 
feeling and Christian love. His letters, his words, and his 
actions speak of a man whose heart was large. Following 
his dear and blessed Master, he always sought to do un- 
obtrusive acts of kindness, many of which never can be 
known or spoken of here, but all of which will be known 
in * that day.* 

" When persons came to enquire concerning salvation, or 
to confess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, how his eyes 
v/ould brighten ; and how heartily he would welcome them. 
It mattered not to him what the character of the clothing, 
or what the age of the candidate. He could always meet 
their condition, and tenderly sympathize with them. Many 
a one have I seen go into that vestry with a tearful eye, who 
has returned with joy on the countenance. The Lord has 
struck the fetters from many a sin-bound soul while upon 
his knees in that hallowed room. 

" His tenderness towards the poor and the afflicted was 
very noticeable. If, in the morning of the day, he had a com- 
munication that some member of the church, or even some- 
one who was not a member of the church, was laid aside, 
he would turn out of his way, in order that he might call 
upon the sick one, to help and comfort them. 

**Let me say one word concerning my brethren, the 
Elders whom I represent. We are of one heart and of one 
mind. Our hearts were knit to the beloved Pastor, and we 
have pledged ourselves to hold together in the name of the 
Lord, whom we serve ; whatever may be the future history 
of the church, you will find the Eldership standing as one 
man for the faith of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." 



122 From the Pulpit 

The Chairman here interposed, and touchingly said : " I 
am sure that you will spare me the minute required to read a 
telegram, which has just arrived from my dear sister at 
MentoiL 

"Telegram from Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon. 

'*My heart bleeds with yours, but our beloved's joy is 
full. We shall see him again, and our hearts shall rejoice. 
Death shall be swallowed up in victory, and the Lord God 
will wipe away tears from off all faces. 

Spurgeon, Menton." 

Rev. W. Corden Jones, " a trusted servant and helper in 
connection with the Colportage Association," gave out the 
hymn commencing, •* Oh, God of Bethel," which was heartily 
sung, after which it was announced that Principal Gracey, 
who was to have represented the College, was, to the regret 
of all, too ill to be present, and that only one other name, 
reminding us worthily of the text, " Instead of the fathers 
shall be the children," remained upon the programme. 

Deacon William Olney said : " I have been asked to 
speak this morning on behalf of the many missionary 
workers. Our dear Pastor, whom God has taken to him- 
self, had a remarkable power of infusing his own love for 
souls into the hearts of others. In response to his 'Trumpet 
Calls to Christian Energy,'* from this platform, men went 
out of this congregation in hundreds, to fling themselves 
into the slums of the South of London, and bring in 
members to this church out of some of the lowest parts 
of the neighbourhood. As a consequence of this, there 
are, today, twenty-three mission stations, and twenty-six 
branch schools, and at these places there are every Sunday 
evening about one thousand of the members of this 

* The title of one of Mr. Spurgeon's admirable books. 



to the Palm-Branch. 123 

church working for the Lord Jesus Christ amongst the 
poor. Just before Mr. Spurgeon was taken ill last summer, 
with that illness which has ended fatally, he used to re- 
count, sometimes in his addresses at the prayer-meeting, 
sometimes in private conversation, a little incident in 
mission work which was very touching. A dear brother 
who, I expect, is present here this morning, wrote to his 
Sunday-school class in a mission school, and in consequence 
of those letters, some half-dozen of his boys were brought 
to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our dear pastor 
used to tell that story with tears, and to ask all his Christian 
hearers to be as earnest in telling the story of the love of 
Jesus by tongue and by pen. 

" How was it that our dear Pastor had such a love for 
mission work, and had such a great influence in spreading 
it ? I think, perhaps, most of all, because he valued the 
souls of poor men. He looked upon the soul of a poor 
man as equal in value to the soul of a rich man ; he knew 
that for all eternity the soul of a scavenger, cleansed by 
the blood of Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit of 
God, would shine as brightly in the crown of the Lord 
Jesus Christ as a soul of any peer of the realm, who 
might be brought to the knowledge of the Lord. 

"Another reason for his great interest in mission work 
was his wonderful kindliness of heart. How full of love he 
was — ^real charity — not the name of the thing, but the very 
spirit of it ! I remember a dear friend, a poor widow, going 
up from Bermondsey to join the church. She came back 
and said, ' Oh, Mr. Spurgeon was so kind to me. He not 
only spoke in words and received me into the church, but 
he gave me half-a-crown.' I confess that I was very much 
alarmed to hear it at the time, for I feared that all the poor 
widows in Bermondsey would want to come and join the 
church. But it was an illustration of his kindliness of heart 
towards the poor. 



124 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branck. 

" The South of London in this mission work is poor, in- 
expressibly poor, to-day, because of the loss that we have 
suffered. I beseech you, brethren, men of position and in- 
fluence and riches, connected with this church, to do for the 
home mission work, as far as you can, what the Pastor did for 
it. And let my fellow soldiers of the cross working in South 
London missions, go forward as led by his spirit, still 
believing that the gospel which was powerful in his lips 
shall be powerful in ours also." 

The service closed with the Benediction. 



FOR MINISTERS AND STUDENTS. 



On Wednesday afternoon, February loth, 1892, com- 
mencing at three o'clock, the Memorial Service for Ministers 
and Students of all Denominations was held, a magnificent 
congregation assembling, representing all sections of the 
visible church. 

Rev. David Davies, of Brighton, after prayer by Dr. 
PiERSON, announced the opening hymn, — 

" Come, let us join our friends above 
Who have obtained the prize, 
And on the eagle wings of love 
To joy celestial rise. 

'* Let all the saints terrestrial sing, 

With those to glory gone ; 
For all the servants of our King, 
In earth and heaven, are one. 

" One family we dwell in him, 
One church above, beneath. 
Though now divided by the stream, 
The narrow stream of death. 

•• One army of the living God, 
To his command we bow ; 
Part of his host have crossed the flood, 
And part are crossing now. 

E'en now by faith we join our hands 

With those that went before ; 
And greet the blood-besprinkled bands 
On the eternal shore. " 



126 From the Pulpit 

The singing by such a number of cultivated male voices, 
accustomed to congregational praise, was of a most inspiring 
character. 

Rev. Alexander McLaren, D.D., the Chairman of the 
meeting, then said : " Dear brethren and comrades in the 
ministry of the Lord Jesus, — We gather this afternoon united 
in one sentiment of affectionate reverence for the greatest 
preacher of his age. I suppose that such a gathering as 
this, of men more or less directly and exclusively engaged 
in the ministry of the gospel, differing widely from one 
another in opinion, forms of government, casts of mind, 
methods of discharging our work, and yet giving one 
unanimous suffrage as to the supremacy of our departed 
brother, is an unheard-of thing. It was not only the genius 
that we admired ; it was not only the splendour of his 
popular gift, or the diligence with which he cultivated it 
and offered it to his Master ; but it was the profound faith, 
the earnestness, the devotion, the self oblivion, which en- 
deared him to many hearts, and were the secret of his 
power. Instead of eulogizing the dead preacher, I venture 
to ask you, with myself, to try to draw lessons from that 
extraordinary career, which has ended, so far as we are 
concerned, to-day. It seems to me, meditating on the loss 
of my dear friend and brother, your brother and friend, 
that I have learned for myself some lessons, which I venture, 
with all respect and deference, to press upon you. 

"Thinking of C. H. Spurgeon's hfe, I have learned what 
is the staple of a siiccessf id ministry , I would not narrowly 
construe the word. I would make all allowances for diver- 
sities of natural temperament, and for differences of audience 
to whom we have to speak; but, making all allowances for 
these, and remembering likewise that no one man is capable 
of all things, I still point to that coffin, and say that, to 
myself, it proclaims that if a man desires to reach, and to 



to the Palm-Branch. 127 

hold, and to bless, the largest number of his fellow-men, he 
must keep fast to the great central verities of the Christian 
faith — salvation through Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Lamb 
of God ; life through the Divine Spirit ; faith in Christ, the 
uniting bond ; and simplicity of good works, the manifest 
token. We do not need — we shall be unwise if we seek — 
other sources for the power and blessedness of our ministry 
than the adherence to the regnant facts of man's need, and 
the all-sufficient supply of that need in Jesus Christ our 
Lord. 

" There is one thing in which all the world is alike, and 
that is, sin and misery. There is one message that will find 
its way to all hearts, and that is, the message which our dear 
brother consecrated his life to proclaim. This needs and 
implies the consecration of the loftiest intellect, and will 
reward the energies of the most sedulous cultivation. For 
there is no greater mistake than to suppose that plainness 
and efficiency can be secured without toil and pain. 

" Our brother was gifted with a natural genius for forceful 
utterance, which sets him by the side of the greatest masters 
of the English tongue ; but it was not because of natural 
genius only, but because he had set himself to be * under- 
standed of the common people,' that his words crystallized 
themselves into proverbs, that they flashed and glowed 
with illustration, and never transcended the possibilities 
and comprehension of the lowest of his audience. That 
is an ambition which the most learned amongst us, and 
the most cultured and refined among us, may well set before 
themselves. I do not believe that any truth is so deep 
that it is not capable of expression in the English tongue 
which John Bunyan and C. H. Spurgeon wielded. I do 
not believe that we Christian ministers have got anything 
much worth saying to-day which cannot be said in language, 
that the old women in their garrets, and the little children 
in their nurseries, can understand and remember. And so, 



128 From the Pulpit 

I say, let us take the lesson of the staple of a successful 
ministry. 

" Will you bear with me while I go a step further, and 
venture to crystallize another set of thoughts into words, 
that we may all learn here to-day, what is the spirit of a 
Christ-taught a7id therefore successful ministry t I know 
nothing more beautiful, as there was nothing more winning 
and powerful, in our brother's work, than his utter self- 
forgetfulness. No affectation ; no contortions ; few exag- 
gerations \ a rich variety of tone and subject ; and all made 
mighty because you could see that the last thing that he 
was thinking about was himself. The least stain of the 
opposite thing spoils everything. The harp-string, when it 
is struck and touched so as to make melody, vibrates and 
becomes invisible when it is musical ; and you and I, dear 
brethren, must consent to efface ourselves if we would set 
forth Jesus Christ. The wall on which the pictures hang 
must be of a neutral tint \ and the men who will glorify 
Jesus must forget themselves. 

" Nor is the accent of conviction and the spirit of robust 
and unfaltering belief less needful. Our friend was little 
touched by questions and difficulties which torture some of 
us ; but let a man preach the things that he is sure of, be 
they few or many, and let him keep to himself his doubts. 
'Yeast,' the title of a book well-known in its day, was 
self-condemned, by its title, for yeast is meant to be kept till 
it has passed through a process before it is fit for human 
lips. So what we have to set forth is the belief, which, 
by God's grace, wc have won ; if we stick to that, we shall 
not fail to learn and find more. From this bier there comes 
a voice, ^ I believed ; therefore have I spoken.' Brethren, 
let us answer, 'We also believe, and therefore speak.' 

•' May I say, before I sit down, that the hidden spring of a 
successful ministry is no less taught us to-da) than its staple 
and its spirit. No man will forget himself, or preach 



to the Palm-Branclu 129 

with supreme power the great truths of the salvation that is 
in Christ Jesus, unless in many a silent and secret hour he 
himself has fed upon these, and unless the way into the 
holiest of all is very familiar to his willing feet. We know 
that the marvellous power of fusing all this mighty mass of 
people, and bearing up their hearts to the throne, which 
our brother possessed, and which some of us think yet 
more helpful than his ministry to men, was not gained 
or kept except by the simple, childlike, continual, close, 
penitent, aspiring, and yearning communion of his own 
heart with the Father in the heavens. Brethren, the river 
that has to fertilize a continent must rise up on the mount 
of God, and be fed with the pure snows that lie there. 

" Pardon me that I have occupied so much of your time, 
but I sought, if I might, by my humblest and truest testi- 
mony of love and of loss in this great grief, to make you 
share in the lessons which I hope it has taught me." 

A hearty *^ Amen " from many in the audience showed 
how deep was the response to these words. 

Rev. Canon Fleming, B.D., being next called upon, 
said : — " There are times when our hearts are quite too full 
to find utterance, and this is one of them. Even if I could 
speak as I wish, I could not pretend to embalm your grief 
for your pastor and friend to-day. As the Chairman has 
told you, I am with you in a double capacity. I am here 
as Honorary Secretary of the Religious Tract Society — a 
society which owed much to the pen, and also to the voice 
of Spurgeon — a society which he loved, because he loved 
everything that was catholic, good, and evangelical. I also 
stand here as an old personal friend who enjoyed his friend- 
ship for more than five-and-twenty years, ever since I came 
to the metropolis and began to work near to him in South 
London. It goes without saying that he loved his friends ; you 
have only to recall the grasp of his warm hand, and the ' God 

9 



130 From tlie Ptdpit 

bless you ! ' that leaped to his honest lips, to be sure 
of that. 

"I am also glad to stand here as a clergyman of the Church 
of England, not taking upon myself in the slightest degree to 
represent my own church, but taking the full responsibility, 
as one of its working clergy, to say that I feel honoured by 
being invited to take part in this memorial service. I have 
not forgotten words which I heard Mr. Spurgeon speak many 
years ago in South London. He said, * I would not give a 
headless pin for a man who did not belong to that denomi- 
nation which he conscientiously believed to be the best ; but 
I have learned to love truth better than any sect, and Christ 
more than any church.' Those were strong words. Yes, 
and in order to Christian union, which we all desire to-day, 
and which the Church at large, with all its differences, 
desires and longs and prays for, we must be one in Christ, 
holding those great cardinal truths which cluster round 
the cross; which bring men to God, and draw man to 
man. There are differences of administration, but there is 
one Lord. There are diversities of opinion, but there is one 
body. We are under different standards ; but I feel that 
as ministers of all denominations, assembled here to-day, 
though we may be ranged under very different banners, with 
names that we love and cherish and honour inscribed on 
them, yet we have one sovereign standard under which we 
all rally, and upon which is inscribed the name that is above 
every name — the name of Jesus. 

" Our friend was called for a long time to pass through the 
baptism of pain. The whole world watched his sick bed ; and 
the letters that he then wrote to you, and the messages that he 
then sent to you and to others, made that sick bed the best 
pulpit from which he ever preached. He is now in the Father's 
house, where are many mansions, and there is no sick room 
there. No tear can fall within the crystal gates of that king- 
dom ; no pain, no sorrow, no sin, no death can enter there. 



to the Palm-Branch. 131 

" His life had no evening, not even a twilight. His 
end was so gradual and so gentle, that we may say of 
him, as our Master said of Lazarus, ' Our friend Lazarus 
sleepeth.' Who of us, I ask, except those who have a 
right to personal and domestic sorrow, can mourn for a man 
who died so happily, his nobly-used faculties possessed 
up to the last, his life lived out from birth to death like a 
fruit which blossomed in his youth, and then fell ripe and 
mellow before the frosts of winter had even touched it ? 
There is no idea of incompleteness resting upon his work. 
He would have been great in any calling to which he might 
have devoted himself, but he was greatest of all in that 
which was the passion of his life — to preach the gospel in 
order to bring souls to Christ 

" He had the endowment of a surpassing memory, and 
that, humanly speaking, was a wonderful key to his power 
and his success. Not only did he forget nothing, but he 
could command and use whatever he had learned. Yet 
all the gold, and myrrh, and frankincense of his genius were 
laid at the feet of Christ, with the humility of a little child, 
and he was wholly unconscious of the gift that he carried 
in his hand. He has gone, as a writer has said, a little 
nearer to the Master of all teachers, himself a great teacher ; 
not always polished, sometimes rugged, plain, homely, but 
always sweet and pure. His sermons and his books always 
carry diamonds in disguise. 

" How much do all the students here owe in gratitude to 
him? The old students, many of you now enrolled in the ranks 
of the ministry, can never forget the depth of his piety, the 
tenderness of his spirit, the fertility of his illustrations, the 
power of his prayer, and the sympathy of his marvellous voice, 
hushed now here below, but richer than ever above. He 
taught you what it was to be teachable, and not censorious 
towards others ; to be large-hearted, yet true and firm and 
discriminating, never tampering with truth, and never 



132 From the Pulpit 

parleying with error. He made you feel that the Bible is a 
book not to be suspected, not to be apologized for, but to 
be believed, trusted, and received with docility as the very 
Word of God. How are you all, and especially the young 
men of this generation who are to take up the standard, 
and carry on the great work to which he devoted his life, 
to pay him the debt which you feel in your hearts, you owe 
to him ? You can only try to do it by imitating him, and 
by following him in the spirit of those lessons to which we 
have just listened from our Chairman. But I venture to 
suggest that a man will best imitate Spurgeon by not 
attempting to imitate him at all, and he will best follow 
him by following Him whom he loved and served. 

" The world to-day is colder, darker, duller, poorer, for 
his absence; but heaven is fuller, warmer, richer for his 
presence." 

Rev. William Cuff led the assembly in a very earnest 
prayer in which, beseeching God for the present power of 
the Holy Spirit in the lives of many of the ministers of the 
Word, he evidently touched a chord which gave a ready 
response. 

Rev. John Bond announced the next appropriate hymn, — 

*' Far down the ages now, 

Her journey well-nigh done, 
The pilgrim Church pursues her way. 

In haste to reach the crown. 

" No wider is the gate. 

No broader is the way, 
No smoother is the ancient path, 

That leads to light and day. 

" No sweeter is the cup, 

No less our lot of ill ; 
Twas tribulation ages since, 

'Tis tribulation still. 



to the Palm-Branch, 133 

" No slacker grows the fight, 

No feebler is the foe, 
No less the need of armour tried. 
Of shield and spear and bow. 

« Still faithful to our God, 

And to our Captain true ; 
We follow where he leads the way, 

The Kingdom in our view." 

The singing was again phenomenal, surging around the 
building like the voice of many seas. 

Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D., Moderator of the English 
Presbyterian Synod, then said : — " If the angel of this church 
— and that title from the Apocalypse seems to be the fittest 
for him now— were with us once again, guiding this meeting, 
as he has guided so many in this place, and having it accord- 
ing to his own heart, I am sure that he would forbid that the 
prevailing tone should be a tone of lamentation. While he 
was yet alive we fasted and wept, for we said, ' Who can 
tell whether God will be gracious unto us, that his servant 
yet may live ? ' but now that he is dead wherefore should we 
fast ? Can we bring him back again ? We shall go to him, 
but he shall not return to us. Like David, in his great 
sorrow, we have come to worship him who gave, and who 
now has taken away. The honoured and beloved widow 
has given us the true key-note in that beautiful message of 
hers, which so touches all our hearts, showing, as it does, 
that she is strong in faith, even as her husband always was : 
* He hath done all things well.' Never were palms more 
appropriate than they are here to-day. Never with more 
emphasis could the song be sung in Zion, ' O death, where 
is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? Thanks be 
to God, who hath given his servant the victory, through our 
Lord Jesus Christ.' 

" But then there comes the thought of loss, immeasurable 
and unspeakable loss. We cannot express nor realize it. 



134 Front the Pidpit 

Still we do not forget that, measureless as is the loss, just so 
measureless was the gift. Forty years of such service ! 
And shall we murmur because it was not lengthened to 
sixty years, as it might have been ? Before we murmur let 
us consider how rarely in all the history of the church, if 
ever, there has been just such forty years as this, so real, so 
full, so world-wide in reach and power. 

" We have spoken of the loss as immeasurable, but we 
may not speak of it as irreparable — not at least in the 
largest sense. To the dear ones in the home, to those who 
called him Pastor, and to those who called him friend, it 
is irreparable ; not till the morning of the resurrection can 
that loss be repaired. But let us not imagine or suggest 
in our unbelief that God cannot repair to his cause even so 
great a loss. Is not * the residue of the Spirit ' with him ? 
It is not within the bounds of probability that those of us 
who have silver in our hairs will ever look upon his like 
again ; but is there any reason to believe that there cannot 
be such another raised up in the coming generation ? May 
there not be among the young men in this assembly to-day 
many Spurgeon-Uke souls ? May we not hope and pray 
that, in this very hour, the petitions which we have been 
offering may find an answer, perhaps beyond what we have 
imagined, and that God by his Spirit may already have 
touched, may be touching now, or may touch ere the 
service closes, some young hearts with that same fire which 
began to burn in the soul of Charles Haddon Spurgeon 
long ago, and has without failing burnt on all these forty 
years? Oh, may God answer that prayer, and grant his 
Spirit to many of the students gathered here ! Though it is 
not possible that any of the older men may attain to the 
measure of the stature of our dear friend, may not everyone 
of us add just a little to his stature .? To the natural 
stature we cannot add a cubit by taking thought, but to the 
spiritual stature we can most unquestionably add by the 



to the Palm-Branch. 135 

grace of God. How great would be the power if there were 
just now some increment of spiritual force all over this 
vast sea of hearts that mourn to-day for Charles Haddon 
Spurgeon ! 

"And why should we not expect it? Suppose that, just 
in proportion as the spirit of sympathy and love has been 
poured out, there was a spirit of grace and supplication 
poured out ? If only we continue in prayer, and have our 
hearts open to receive the answer to our prayers, might it 
not be that the spiritual forces available for the cause of 
Christ would be even greater now than in the days when 
the pastor of this church was in his prime ? Then it may 
well be that, marvellously as Christ was magnified in the life, 
he will be still more marvellously magnified through the 
death of his great servant, who made his gospel ring out from 
this spot where we stand, even to the very ends of the earth." 

The Rev. Hereer Evans, D.D., Chairman of the Con- 
gregational Union, said : — " Little did I think, when I came 
here on a Thursday night in May last to hear my friend Mr. 
Spurgeon ; to have another touch of his hand ; and to pay 
my first visit anywhere after I was elected to the chair of the 
Union ; that I should be called upon by the Committee of 
that Union to attend his funeral, and to express a tribute to 
his memory. We unite in the unspeakable grief which we 
all suffer by his departure. Some of us thought, in coming 
up from the country, that we should look once more upon 
his face, but perhaps it is better that we should not, because 
we should be obliged to say for the first time, ' He will not 
speak to me.' But we are here, in the presence of death, 
to take a look over into the unseen. It has been said that 
our dear friend could always preach better on the Sunday, 
if, on the Saturday, he had been to see the dying, and to 
have just a look over the brink. I hope that this meeting 
will help us preachers of the gospel to carry with us home to 



136 From the Ptilpit 

our different spheres of labour some of the secret power which 
enabled him to wield such influence, so that we, too, may 
serve our Master with greater devotedness and earnestness. 

'* All men, as far as I know, admit now that at the back 
of all Spurgeon did and all he said there was a man, a true 
man, a large-hearted man, or, as Milton said of Cromwell, 
a man of men. He was possessed by the gospel, and he had 
the deepest conviction of its power to save men, because he 
knew that it had saved him. He once said in this Taber- 
nacle, ' Next to the Holy Spirit who sets us praying and sets 
us working, I owe prosperity in preaching the gospel to the 
gospel that I preach.' 

" Everybody who came to hear him, of late years anyhow, 
would, I think, confess, * Here is a man that preaches from 
the bottom of his heart. He believes, without a doubt, what 
he says.' Dr. Charles Stanford once said, * Whatever use 
there may be in doubts, they are not good to preach.' God 
could not have conferred a greater blessing on this age, 
than by giving us this man — a man with a great soul, and 
that soul fully possessed with love towards God and the 
gospel. He lived not only his own personal life ; he 
moulded the lives of thousands. His character was not like 
a watch hidden in a pocket, to tell upon the life of one man, 
but rather like a great clock in a high tower, directing and 
correcting the lives, shall I say, of millions ; showing them 
time by the light of eternity. 

" We must not be misled by the way which some critics 
have of explaining his great influence. They say that 
he had a beautiful voice. So he had. They say that 
he had great humour and great dramatic power and 
unique eloquence, which is quite true. But his sermons 
did not carry those things with them when they were 
printed, and you must therefore explain their success in 
some other way. Neither did the work that he did as a 
Christian philanthropist come from those gifts. They 



to the Palm- Branch. 137 

must therefore have had another source. This is the grand 
chapter in Charles Haddon Spurgeon's history, and it is 
this chapter of philanthropy which has compelled men 
outside the Christian church to admit that at any rate he 
was no hypocrite. No, my dear friends, there is only one 
force sufficient to account for all that this man did. He 
was a man of God, ' full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.' 

" I have heard it said too often to please me, of late, that 
Mr. Spurgeon had no great advantages of birth and training. 
I do not believe that. Was it not a great advantage to be 
born of godly, prayerful parents ? Was it not a great advan- 
tage to be able to trace his pedigree back for two hundred 
years to a martyr for Christ in Job Spurgeon, and to a long 
and unbroken line of preachers who preached because they 
believed in the gospel ? From such a line came this 
grandest preacher of the age. who preached the word of 
God without a single hesitation, and who preached all of it. 
I think he had great advantages of birth and training. Was 
he not trained in the way he should go? And when he 
became old, did he depart from it ? Was he not led in ' the 
way everlasting ' ? And is he not on it now, only a turning 
or two farther on ? 

" But there was one thing that he did not inherit, and one 
thing that he could not transmit — his personal piety. It 
was from this that his enthusiasm for Christ arose. It was 
this that kept his life and his zeal kindling to the very last. 
Let us thank God for such a preacher in our day. He 
suffered more than many a martyr, but he ' endured as 
seeing Him who is invisible.' He never could have had 
such sympathy for orphans without homes, for students 
without means, for widows without friends, had he not been 
made perfect by great suffering. The high price which 
everyone must pay for the power to be a great healer is to 
suffer even to agony. The old principle is still true, that 
we can only heal one anollicr with blood. 



138 From the Pulpit 

" There are two Charles Haddon Spurgeons. One is to be 
buried to-morrow in the midst of great sorrow and grief, in 
the heart of this city which he loved so well, and which he 
gave his life to save. Many a man from distant parts will 
come to that grave, and will say, ' I read his words far away 
in my distant home, and they turned me to Jesus ; and I 
vowed that when I came to London I would drop a tear 
over his grave. It is not a tear of sadness, when I think 
of him it falls as naturally as April rain.' Mothers will 
take their little children to that grave, and tell them quietly 
the name of the man that turned them heavenward, and 
changed their earthly home to a place of peace." 

Here the speaker almost reached his native Welsh hwyl, 
and hundreds of strong men in the congregation sobbed 
like little children. 

" But there is one Charles Haddon Spurgeon whom we 
cannot bury ; there is not earth enough in Norwood to bury 
him — the Spurgeon of history. The good works that he has 
done will live. You cannot bury them. 

" Mr. Spurgeon was the strongest believer in prayer that 
I ever met. I have preached for him in this place several 
times, and I have gone away each time with this one 
conviction : * This is the greatest believer in prayer I ever 
met.' His deacons and elders are also men of prayer ; it is 
prayer throughout the place. And that is the reason that 
Spurgeon was not only a preacher, but a prophet. He was 
always waiting upon God for his message, and he came to 
his people with the message he had freshly received from 
his Lord. 

" He has gone, but his works remain. What a grand thing 
it is, that when we do good it remaineth for ever. I know 
not from what tree the rail on this platform was cut, but I 
know that every little leaf that grew upon the parent tree 
helped to make it strong and helped it to grow. Oh, it is a 
very sad thing, in one sense, that we Christian ministers 



to the Palm-BrancJi. 139 

and Christian workers pass away so soon, like the leaves of 
autumn before the blast. But the work remaineth for ever. 
The world is richer to-day because Daniel opened his 
window to pray towards Jerusalem. Yes ; and the world is 
a richer inheritance for our children and grandchildren who 
shall come after us, because Charles Haddon Spurgeon 
lived. Sleep on, then, dear brother after thy great toil, in 
that dreamless bed, until the time shall come which thou 
hast prayed for — the resurrection of the body. Friendship 
and love will cast their garlands on thy memory, and good 
men and women here and hereafter shall bless thee for the 
noble work which thou hast done so well." 

The Rev. T. B. Stephenson, D.D., President of the 
Wesleyan Conference, said : — ** ' If you would find his 
monument look around.' Those words have been in my 
mind ever since I looked upon this sea of faces to-day. I 
refer now not so much to this building, which will always be 
associated with the memory of our brother, as to this wonder- 
ful gathering, one gathering only amongst many wonderful 
gatherings. This meeting is unique ; it will be historical ; 
and it answers to all the world the question, ' What was 
Spurgeon's place in the Christian Church?* People are 
already asking whether Spurgeon was a great man, and with 
their lilliputian measuring- rods they are trying to find the 
size of his faith, of his work, and of his character. How 
idle it all is. Men, even in the hour of their death, are not 
always appreciated at their real greatness, but no man, who 
was not in the noblest sense a great man, could have won, 
or have deserved, such a testimony as your presence here 
to-day is giving to his memory. 

" I am here on behalf of the Methodist churches, which 
desire, through my poor lips, first of all to give glory to 
God for the abounding grace which has shone through 
the words and life of his servant ; and secondly, to pay to 



140 From the Pulpit 

his honoured and fragrant memory our tribute of affec- 
tion, of admiration and gratitude. He did not belong to 
us except as he belonged to all the churches, but he did 
belong to us because he belonged to all. 

" Like the loftiest and strongest servants of God, he was 
a denominationalist. He believed in something ; he believed 
it strongly, and he believed it intelligently. Therefore he 
belonged to a defined and recognizable section of the Holy 
Catholic and Apostolic Church. But because his was a 
lofty spirit, his brotherly affection flowed far and wide 
beyond the boundaries of his own church. His quick eye 
recognized the essential truth wherever it was found, and he 
called every man brother who was true to the Master, 
Christ, and who desired that all his work should find its 
centre at the cross of Calvary. 

" Even when ministering to his own, as we all know well, 
his influence was never confined to his own. Out of him, 
because of his great faith, flowed rivers of living water, 
and the streams thereof found their way to the very ends of 
the earth. He belonged to us all. We were all the better 
because of him. To this church, of course, he belonged in 
a more special and intimate sense ; but it has shown by the 
arrangements in which we have been suffered to take part, 
that it does not grudge to any of us that we should claim 
our heritage in his great work and life. 

*' In his early years he spoke of the Methodist theology 
with some tartness, not to say severity. We have always 
thought that then he did not quite understand us. As his 
career progressed, he came to find that we were nearer a 
good deal to him than he thought in those earliest days. 
At all events he loved us much; he served us nobly on 
many occasions; and he showed that he was not to be 
divided from those who earnestly and honestly loved the 
Lord Jesus Christ, by any of those minor points of division 
which he held to be light indeed, in comparison with the 



to the Palm-Branch. 141 

great central truths. But if he had spoken of any views 
which we may hold far more severely than he ever did, we 
would not think of it, we could not think of it to-day. We 
think to-day only of his exultation of his Master, Christ ; 
only of the passionate fervour with which he besought men 
to come to Christ and be saved ; only of the Spirit of 
Christ which shone in all his works throughout his noble 
life. 

" Many things have been said to-day which will, I am 
sure, dwell in your memory, and which I will not attempt to 
repeat ; but there are two thoughts which I venture to sug- 
gest to you in reference to our dear friend who has gone. 
I think that he rendered a great service to his age, and to the 
coming age also, in that he upheld during so long a life the 
majesty of preaching. Men say that preaching is played out, 
and that the pulpit is superfluous. The editor is to be the 
great minister of God in the future, and the people are to get 
their gospel from the newspapers. God grant that they may 
get gospel from the newspapers, and that the editors may be 
equal to the duty which some of them are prepared to accept. 
But with that coffin before us, none of us can doubt that 
the pulpit is the power in the world still — that still by the 
foolishness of preaching God is pleased to save men. And 
I am quite sure that in the fact that from this place there 
rolled forth over the world a voice which it was willing to 
hear, and which it listened for — yes, listened for, even through 
the strife and din of politics, of commerce and pleasure — 
there has been maintained a testimony to the power of the 
simple preaching of the gospel, the value of which it is im- 
possible for us to estimate now. 

"I confess to one thing that always drew me very strongly 
to our dear friend, and which, I think, has accounted for the 
wonderful hold that he has had upon, not religious circles 
only, but upon the mass of the people throughout this country, 
and that is the fact that with all the gracious and abounding 



142 From the Pulpit 

unction which attended his words and ministry, there was 
a healthy and natural manliness. It is not always easy when 
we are speaking of the deepest things of God to avoid a 
look and tone which the world is very ready indeed to mis- 
interpret. Sometimes it is difficult for us ourselves to keep 
clear, altogether, from the unreal in thought and feeling when 
we are dealing with those subjects which lie deepest in our 
hearts ; and the world is not slow to call by the ugly name 
of sanctimoniousness ' that which we very often are delighted 
to recognize as the working in us and out of us of the Spirit 
and mind of God. Mr. Spurgeon, though he delighted to 
speak of the deepest things, and though he allowed his 
delight in speaking of those deepest things to be obvious to 
everybody, yet, when he was speaking of his closest and 
deepest relations to the Lord Jesus Christ, he always had in 
tone and manner a naturalness, a brightness, a cheeriness, 
which went to every man's heart, and which made men say, 
' That is a true man. However, he may be talking about 
things that are beyond me, and belong to a region that is 
higher and farther than I have yet penetrated, yet he is a 
true man.' 

" In showing to the world the glorious example of a fine, 
healthy, natural manliness in connection with the sweetest 
evangelical doctrine, and the richest evangelical experience, 
he has also rendered very great service to the Church of 
God. During the last two or three days, those words of 
the Saviour, applied to the Baptist, have been running very 
often in my mind with reference to our departed friend. 

" * What went ye out to see ? A reed shaken with the 
wind ? ' No, this was no reed shaken with the wind. This 
was a man who knew his mind, and had a will of his own, 
and could not be bent hither and thither by every passing 
breeze. 

"'What went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft 
raiment? behold, they that are gorgeously apparelled and 



to the Palm- Branch. 143 

live delicately are in kings' courts.' No courtier was this 
man, seeking carefully for the word which would not grieve 
his patron. This was a man who dared to speak the truth 
to anybody, even to the great king ' Mob.' This man was 
ready to take the consequence of his deed. His life was 
not devoted to having the softest bed, the pleasantest place, 
the healthiest work, and the largest honour. He was ready 
to bear the consequences of his faith and duty — ready to 
suffer and endure, rather than to be false to his convictions, 
or negligent of his opportunities. 

" ' But what went ye out to see ? A prophet ? ' Yea, a 
foreteller, a messenger whom God sent, and who, because 
he was a true messenger, was, above all other things, 
anxious to deliver his message. If the prophets whom 
God raises up even now have ever a message given to them 
— something that comes from the divine mind and must 
pass through other minds to the people — happy is he who 
is willing and content to be the messenger of God. 

" Those wonderful lips, upon which many of us hung so 
often with delight, are closed now, and we shall hear the 
silver voice no more : but we thank God that we have 
heard it. We glorify God for the grace that dwelt so 
constantly upon those lips; and, amid all the sorrow of 
to-day, we rejoice in this consolation, that the voice, though 
stilled on earth, is already heard in praise before the throne 
of God." 

The Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., who was the next 
speaker, said : — 

When the whole Church of Christ gathers about the bier 
of a saint, it is very proper that America should be 
represented, and I am here, inadequate as I am, as such a 
representative, to lay the garland of American Christians 
alongside of this grave, 

I am not one of those who share the faintest hope that 



144 From tJie Pidpit 

Charles Haddon Spurgeon will be reproduced in this age, or 
in any other. God never reproduces a man ; and when he 
made Charles Haddon Spurgeon he broke the mould. But 
we may, from this blessed and sanctified life, learn some- 
thing about the way to live. The alabaster flask has been 
broken, and the whole house is full of the odour of the 
ointment. But, if we cannot construct another alabaster 
flask like this which is shattered, we may, at least, by the 
odour that fills the whole Church of God to-day, learn what 
it is tliat makes a life fragrant to holy men, and even to a 
gainsaying world. 

I think that I never felt the responsibility of speaking 
for a few moments, more than in this marvellous assembly, 
in which, I presume, more ministers of Christ and students 
of the Word are represented than, perhaps, in any single 
assembly that has met in the British Isles for half a century. 

One danger in reviewing such a life as this is, that we 
shall hastily dismiss our own responsibility by simply saying 
of such a man, " He was an inimitable genius." Has it ever 
occurred to us that Mr. Spurgeon was great, not so much on 
account of any single faculty, or achievement, or peculiarity, 
which was so colossal as to overtop all else ; but rather 
that he was great by the rare combination of beautiful and 
useful characteristics ? And, if we may not aspire to the like 
combination for ourselves, may we not, from the individual 
peculiarities, learn something of what is possible to be 
embodied and illustrated in our own individual lives ? 

I am deeply persuaded that, whatever we may say about 
this marvellous man, there is for his greatness, a basis, both 
natural and supernatural, which it is possible for us to 
understand, and in some measure to reproduce. 

For example, as to the 7iatiiral basis of his usefulness^ I 
would remark, first of all, his love of truth — of what was 
genuine, of what was honest, of what was outspoken. He 
reminds me of Seneca's pilot, who, in the midst of the 



to the Palin-Bj'auch. 145 

stormy waves, looked out on the waters, and said, "Neptune, 
you may sink me, or you may save me, but I will hold my 
rudder true ! " You may not have agreed with Mr. Spurgeon 
in the course which he lately pursued with regard to his 
convictions of doctrine and of duty; but no man is here 
present who can withhold his hearty admiration from one of 
the most heroic acts known in the century. There are very 
few men that make new friends after the age of fifty years. 
When a man cuts himself loose from the friends of his 
manhood and his maturer life, and stands virtually isolated 
and alone because he feels that in some matters, which 
others consider minor matters, but which he himself thinks 
are major matters, he is called upon to suffer, for the truth's 
sake, such heroism would have led a man to the stake in 
the days of martyrdom. 

And then, dear Mr. Spurgeon, besides having a love of 
truth, was never afraid of hard work. We speak of " a man 
of genius " as though genius need not be aUied with 
industry to accomplish results. I am not so much a 
believer in genius as some men are ; but I am thoroughly a 
believer in the genius of industry. He spared himself no 
effort, down to the last days of his life. Even in the midst 
of the weakness and suffering at Menton, within the last few 
months, he painstakingly revised a considerable portion 
of his forthcoming Commentary on the Gospel accord- 
ing to Matthew. Spinoza, among many things that are 
false and fallacious, says very many true things ; among 
others he says this : " There is no hindrance in the way of 
personal advancement that is more fatal than simple self- 
conceit and the laziness which self-conceit begets." To 
think that we have accomplished anything, and to lie by on 
our oars and let ourselves drift, because, forsooth, something 
has been achieved that lies in the past, is the death-blow to 
all real progress. My brother, the best work which you did 
ten years ago will not take the place of the best work you 

10 



146 From the Pulpit 

can do to-day, any more than the nutritious bread that was 
baked a month ago will answer for your present appetite. 
We must have new experiences, fresh accumulations, and 
higher exaltations of spirit, if we are to keep up with the 
demands of the multitude about us, nay, with the demands 
of our own souls. 

Then I greatly admired in dear Mr. Spurgeon the 
marvellous singleness and simplicity of his aims. Arch- 
bishop Whalely said, that " many a man aims at nothing, and 
hits it with remarkable precision." We must have something 
to aim at if we want to secure results in this life of ours. 
Charles Haddon Spurgeon aimed at something desirable to 
be accomplished, and by the grace of God attainable in the 
way of accomplishment, and steadily pursued his aim; there- 
fore he was the man that he was. 

x\nd what zeal such singleness of aim gave him. I was 
taking up yesterday a little analysis made by Dr. Andrew 
Bonar, when he sat down in his study to contemplate modern 
zeal. He felt compelled to write that he believed, in his 
own case, oftentimes what he would call zeal for his Lord, if 
it were analyzed and divided into a hundred parts, would be 
found to consist of — 

Personal ambition 

Love of praise 

Pride of denomination 

Pride of talent 

Love of authority 

Bigotry 

Love of God . . . 

Love of man . . . 

Making in all 100 parts. 

Here ninety-three parts are carnal, leaving but four parts 
for love to God, and three parts for love to man. When 



23 parts. 


19 parts. 


15 parts. 


14 parts. 


12 parts. 


10 parts. 


4 parts. 


3 parts. 



to the Palm-Branch. 147 

we come to submit our zeal to this awful divine chemistry, 
how fearfully humbUng are the analysis and the result ! 

As I am speaking to fellow ministers, I want to say 
here, that because of this singleness of aim, among other 
things, he never lost sight of the oratorical character of 
a sermon. I pray you to notice that sermo is speech, 
whose means is eloquence, and whose end is persuasion. A 
sermon is not an essay ; it is not a theological discussion ; 
it is not a poetic production. It is, first of all, something 
that has an aim. That aim should be to bring men to Jesus 
Christ, the Justifier, the Sanctifier, the Redeemer. The 
oratorical character of a sermon depends on the supremacy 
of a practical aim, an aim outside of self, an aim so un- 
selfish and absorbed in God that it shall lead a man to say, 
what Ignatius said, when he stood in the arena at Rome, 
awaiting the onset of the Numidian lions : " I am grain of 
God. I must be ground between the teeth of Uons to 
make bread for God's people." 

We may not have the genius of Charles Haddon SpilSgHOS?. 
but, if we will imitate his love of hard work, his love of tlit 
truth, his love of souls and the singleness of his aim, wc 
may attain to results of a similar kind to his, even though 
not in a similar measure. 

But now in full view and sense of my responsibility I 
want to say, before I close, a word on the supernatural basis 
of his power ; and may God give me special grace in th 
most important duty. The supernatural basis is the only 
one that will account for the marvellous character or the 
marvellous career of that man whose ashes are before you. 

Mr. Spurgeon believed first of all in the full infallible 
inspiration of the Word of God. To him the Bible was 
God's book par excellence, not pre-eminently God's book, 
but solely God's book, inspired in such a sense as makes 
the word inspiration applicable to no other book ever put 
before the human race. 



148 From the Pulpit 

He believed, in the second place, in the inspiring 
Spirit as a personal Spirit ; that, when God revealed his 
will in ancient times, holy men of old were moved to write 
the Scriptures by the Holy Ghost, so that the product 
was essentially the product of the Spirit of God, and not of 
the spirit of man. I speak emphatically on this subject, 
for the modern theories of inspiration are so constructed 
as to let out entirely the supernatural element. When we 
are told, for instance, that a prophet, knowing certain 
fundamental principles of God's moral government, and being 
himself an accurate observer of human affairs, and a close 
student of human nature, was thereby enabled to predict 
the future of his people, I would like to know what is to 
hinder any other man who knows God's great moral principles, 
who is an accurate observer of events, and who is a student 
of character, from being himself a prophet and uttering 
predictions ! But what does Peter say concerning the 
prophets themselves? ''Searching what, or what manner 
of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, 
when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and 
the glory that should follow." I pray you, intelligent, 
educated, cultivated brethren, to notice the two intelligences 
which Peter recognizes : the spirit of the prophet, and the 
Spirit of God that was in the prophet; these two intelli- 
gences being actually engaged in a sort of conflict among 
themselves, so that the inferior intelligence searches to 
know what the superior intelligence indicates in the un- 
intelligible words which the prophet writes and speaks. 
Now, Mr. Spurgeon believed in those two intelligences — 
the Spirit of God and the spirit of man ; and in his preach- 
ing and study of the Word of God, he sought to rise into 
the atmosphere of the superior Intelligence, that he might 
bring down the thoughts of God to the level of man. That 
is, more than any other assignable cause, the secret of his 
preaching. 



I 



to the Palm- Branch, 149 

In the third place, he beheved in the personal in- 
dwelling of the Spirit of God in the soul and body of 
the behever, constituting him a temple of the Holy Ghost. 

Put these three things together, and see whether any 
man can heartily believe in them without being a mighty 
and spiritual preacher. See the eifect in the interpretation 
of the Word ! If human authors produced the Bible, then 
how are we in interpreting the Bible to secure the aid of the 
authors? Can we go into the catacombs and summon 
from their tombs the dead whose pens were concerned 
in the production of the Scriptures? But if the Holy 
Ghost is the author of the Scriptures — if the handwriting 
is the handwriting of God, though the hand is the hand of 
man, then I submit to you, that in the interpretation of 
the Bible, we may reverently call the Author himself to our 
aid. What is the consequence ? Mr. Spurgeon found out, 
and others who believe like him have grasped the same 
truth, that the originality of sermons depends not on our 
invention, but on our discovery. That is to say, instead of 
inventing a discourse out of our own minds, and attaching 
it by the artificial hinge of a text to the Holy Scripture, we 
search to know what the Holy Ghost means in the Word of 
God ; and when, by his gracious aid, we have discovered his 
meaning, we unfold that meaning in the discourse, So the 
greatest sermon is that which unfolds the greatest discovery 
of the hidden Spirit. 

Now, Mr. Spurgeon had to cultivate his own individual 
life of piety, or all this would have become impossible to 
him. If the Spirit of God dwells in a man, and is to 
illumine the pages of the Word, the clearness of such 
illumination will depend on the unobstructiveness of the 
media through which his light shines. If we would have 
fellowship with God which is constant and uninterrupted, 
we must keep the panes of glass, in the windows, clear. Then 
the Spirit's light, burning within us, and shining through 



150 From the Pulpit 

the undimmed medium upon the pages of Scripture, will 
unfold to us the wondrous things of God. But if we close 
those windows with dark shutters, if our failure to realize 
divine communion and to live in fellowship with God 
intercepts and hinders the Spirit ; if, in other words, as Paul 
says, we "quench the Spirit," how can the light of the Spirit 
which must shine through our own experience, illustrate and 
illuminate the pages of the Word that we are to expound and 
explain ? 

Oh, my brethren, we need in these days, more than all 
else, one more touch of the supernatural in our individual 
lives ! Give me the man that preaches with a deep personal 
sense that God lives in him by the Spirit, and that this Book 
is a living book, which the living Spirit inspired, and in which 
the living Spirit still dwells ; then bring the man, who is 
himself a living temple of the Spirit of God, into contact 
with the Book, which is the living utterance of the Spirit 
of God, and how can there but come from such a ministry 
power to convert, power to sanctify, power to edify, and 
power to redeem ? 

This is the message which your American brother brings 
in humility and simplicity this afternoon to this great 
assembly of ministers and students of the Word. God give 
us the spirit of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, for that spirit 
was the Spirit of God ! 

D. L. Moody sent his greeting by telegraph from Paisley. 
The message was read at this juncture, and ran, " Heartiest 
sympathy with sorrowing friends in London. ' Jesus Christ 
the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.' " 

Rev. F. B. Meyer, B.A., the last speaker, was called upon 
when the time for the meeting had expired, and when 
already the crowd was gathering at the doors for the evening 
service. He spoke amid interruption, caused by some who 



to the Palm-Branch, 151 

were compelled to leave, and said : — " In the midst of a 
great campaign, one of the leading officers may suddenly 
fall fatally wounded, and for a moment his comrades in 
arms may call a halt around his body, but there is not a 
thought of renouncing the campaign in which they with 
him were engaged. Every man feels himself once again 
called by that event to more entire consecration to the 
great ends for which his leader died. Surely it would 
be a mistake if we were to allow the feelings which have 
been called out by this memorial meeting to subside, 
without our gathering around this coffin with these remains, 
and once again pledging ourselves, one and all, to renewed 
devotion to the Captain of our salvation, and to renewed 
energy in the preaching of his holy gospel. The prophet 
may have been taken up into heaven, but it is not wise 
for us to stand gazing thither, we must seek again to be 
clothed about with the power that made him what he 
was. Then let us betake ourselves along the lonely way to 
the Jordan, to the sons of the prophets, and to the work 
that still remains to be done in the land. The man of God 
who has been taken from us was indeed a golden vessel, 
and the most of us are but of earth or wood ; but it was 
not because he was gold that he was what he was, but 
because the Master used him. If we to-day will only once 
again put ourselves into the hands of the Master, and seek 
an enduement of that same Spirit, surely from this gathering 
there will go forth a tide of holy influence that shall touch, 
and illuminate, and fill many a church with new power. I 
ask you, therefore, to join with me in a few moments of 
solemn dedication, that we may again lay ourselves on that 
altar that sanctifies the gift, and that we may seek a fresh 
enduement of the Holy Ghost. Then men shall say of us, 
* The spirit of Elijah doth rest upon EUsha,' then Jordans 
shall part before the mantle, then we shall go forth to follow 
our departed brother in his works of healing and salvation." 



152 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch, 

Mr. Meyer then led the assembly in a dedicatory prayer, 
in which occurred the following passage: — " We know how 
rich thou art, else thou hadst not been able to spare from 
this earth so rare a man as this. How royal thou art, how 
fall thy hand is of those ascension gifts, unexhausted by the 
flight of ages, and the demands of thy Church, since thou 
art able to give men like this, and then to take them to thy- 
self again." Thanking God for Mr. Spurgeon's unblem- 
ished, stainless character, and for his sweet humihty so 
unaffected, the speaker mourned the years in our own 
lives which the canker worm and the caterpillar had eaten, 
and besought renewed grace which would enable all to fight 
the good fight, to finish the course with joy, and to keep 
the faith unto the end. 

Rev. J. McEwAN, D.D., pronounced the Benediction, 
and this remarkable meeting was at an end. 



FOR CHRISTIAN WORKERS. 



On Wednesday evening, February loth, 1892, the service 
specially designed for Christian workers of all denomina- 
tions, and church members, other than members of the 
Tabernacle, commenced at seven o'clock. George WiUiams, 
Esq., presided. 

Mr. W. J. Orsman, of the Golden Lane Mission, opened 
the meeting with prayer, in which he thanked God that, as 
a wayward youth, he heard Mr. Spurgeon in the Surrey 
Music Hall, and that there his feet were turned into the 
way of life. He voiced the feeling of many when he said : 
**We are sore in heart — troubled, stunned, bowed down 
with great sorrow, blinded with the bitterest tears we ever 
shed. Many of thy children are learning the awful mystery 
of heart-breaking, — carrying griefs they cannot speak, 
their lives curtained with darkness and suffering; but we 
pray that in this starless night thou wilt come over the 
troubled waters, speaking peace to our souls. Thou loving 
Binder and Healer of torn hearts, in thy pitifulness 
strengthen us that we may say — * He hath done all things 
well.' " 

Mr. A. H. Baynes, Secretary of the Baptist Missionary 
Society, announced Mr. Spurgeon's own version of the 



154 From the Pulpit 

thirty-ninth Psalm, so appropriate to the occasion. With 
great solemnity these verses were sung — 

" Behold, O Lord, my days are made 
A handbreadth at the most ; 
Ere -yet 'tis noon my flower must fade, 
And I give up the ghost. 

Then teach me, Lord, to know mine end, 

And know that I am frail ; 
To heaven let all my thoughts ascend, 

And let not earth prev^ail. 

\Vhat is there here that I should wait. 

My hope's in thee alone ; 
When wilt thou open glory's gate 

And call me to thy throne ? 

A stranger in this land am I, 

A sojourner with thee ; 
Oh, be not silent at my cry, 

But show thyself to me. 

Though I'm exiled from glory's land 

Yet not from glory's King ; 
My God is ever near at hand, 

And therefore I will sing." 

Mr. George Williams, President of the Young Men's 
Christian Association, said : " Charles Haddon Spurgeon 
was the gift of the great Father to the church universal. 
The Metropolitan Tabernacle was the great centre of his 
labours, but the result of his labours could not be con- 
tained within these walls. They flowed over Uke a fountain ; 
bubbling up here, they reached the whole metropolis, the 
whole of England, all over the world where the English 
tongue is spoken, and in many countries where it is un- 
known. Therefore it is that we are exceedingly grateful to 
this church for giving us, the outside Christian public, the 
opportunity of coming and expressing our devout gratitude 
to Almighty God for having raised up Charles Haddon 
Spurgeon to be a blessing to the whole world ! 



to the Palm-Branch. 155 

•'What a welcome he must have received in heaven ere 
this ! What an abundant entrance into the kingdom of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ must have been his ! What 
shouts and Hallelujahs ! What palms of victory and triumph ! 
We are left sorrowing, but we will rejoice that God lent him to 
the church militant so long. With what power, with what 
force, with what strength of will he laboured here ! A 
very Samson, he slew the Philistines right and left ! Like 
David, no Goliath was too large for him to encounter and 
to overcome in the strength of the Lord ! 

" Now that he has gone, we desire that his mantle might 
fall upon us. What was the secret of his strength? Was it 
not his nearness to his dear Lord, the communion which he 
had with his Master ? Was it not the intensity of his love, 
the steadfastness of his faith? Is not God saying to us, 
through his beloved servant, ' Be it unto you according to 
your faith ' ? I remember hearing of a conversation which 
he had with a minister who came to him depressed because 
of the lack of conversions as a result of his ministry. 

*' Mr. Spurgeon said to him, ' But surely you do not 
always expect conversions when you preach ? ' 

" ' No, of course I do not,' the minister replied. 

"'Well, then,' Mr. vSpurgeon said, 'be it unto you 
according to your faith.' 

"I beheve that dear man of God, as he stood in this 
pulpit, expected conversions, and what he expected God 
gave him. May the implicit faith which he had in God, 
dwell also in us. 

" His will be a great name in the history of England for this 
century. As the names of Whitefield and Wesley have such 
a sweet savour amongst us, so will his be for ever fragrant. 
We shall speak now of Whitefield and Wesley and Spurgeon 
as the three great departed leaders in the evangelical cause. 

" We praise God for this gift, which we have not yet fully 
appreciated. What good cause did not dear Mr. Spurgeon 



156 From the Pulpit 

help ? How often he put new life into a meeting by his 
presence. Wherever he went the people came, and his great 
sense, and love, and faith inspired all with confidence. How 
the British and Foreign Bible Society valued his presence at 
their annual gatherings ! How the London City Mission 
benefited by his aid! How the Young Men's Christian 
Association relied upon the advocacy of his voice and pen ! 
How the various missionary societies were stimulated by his 
enthusiasm ! When we think, too, of what he did for other 
churches and other denominations, what a focus of power 
for good is seen in his life. 

'^ I desire, on behalf of the multitude outside of the 
Metropolitan Tabernacle, to give expression to the intensity 
of our admiration, and love for your beloved Pastor. All of 
us — the Church of England, the CongregationaHsts, the 
Wesleyans, the Presbyterians, and every other congregation 
— saw in him a champion, a holy, mighty man of God, ready 
to stand in the front, and to maintain those blessed doc- 
trines of the old gospel, which had won his heart, and which 
he knew would win the hearts of other men. Therefore, it 
is that we desire to express to the beloved wife, and to the 
dear sons, our intense sympathy. How rejoiced he must 
have been to have had such sons ! God bless them ! May 
the mantle of their father fall upon them, and upon his dear 
brother and sisters may the blessing of God abundantly rest 
God be praised for sparing them. We pray that the dear 
friend from America, who is ministering in holy things in 
this place, may be preserved and guided in all the future ; 
that the crowds who have been in the habit of attending 
here, may continue to attend, and that benefit and blessing 
may continue to flow out from this congregation to the ends 
of the earth." 

Sir Arthur Blackwood, K.C.B., President of the Mild- 
may Conference, said : — " If the beloved brother whose 



to the Palm- Branch. 157 

remains lie here to-night could speak to us, I believe that he 
would say, * Speak not of me, but of my Saviour ; or, if you must 
speak of me, speak of the great God who was magnified in me.' 
He ever loved to hide himself, so far as his strong personality 
permitted, behind the Saviour whom he preached. Wrapped 
in the folds of the banner of the Cross, which he so 
courageously, so steadfastly, so persistently waved, his main 
desire was to be nothing, that Christ might be all and in all. 
We shall honour him most truly, we shall express our love 
most fittingly, we shall justify our regard for his person 
most really, if we seek to do as he would bid us do. 

If our brother has desires concerning the work of God 
on earth, surely they are that, by his entrance into the 
kingdom of glory, multitudes might find their entrance 
to God's kingdom of grace 'on earth. As with zeal, he 
ever delighted to draw the sword of battle against the 
enemies of the truth, that they might become its friends ; 
and as multitudes have fallen beneath the weighty strokes 
of that weapon, so he would wish that those whom he slew 
in his death should be more than they whom he slew in his 
life. If perchance it was permitted to Elisha to know and 
to rejoice in the fact that his very remains possessed such 
life-giving power that the man whom they were burying 
hastily in his grave no sooner touched them than he came 
to life, well may our beloved and departed brother rejoice, 
if it be permitted to him to know, that by his death many 
have entered into life eternal. And as for him to Hve 
was Christ, in this sense to die will be most certainly gain. 
Thus we can rejoice with him and thank God ; and if we 
weep we will look upward through our tears, and rejoice as 
we think of the perfect bhss and ineffable enjoyment which 
is now his. He has entered into rest by the side of the River 
of the Water of Life, whose streams he has ministered in such 
fulness to thirsty multitudes on earth. He has also entered 
upon a career of service which no pain, nor weakness, nor 



158 From the Pidpit 

sickness, can ever interrupt. The hand that, like Eleazar's, 
clenched the sword with such a grip that it could not be un- 
loosed, now waves the triumphant palm ; and the voice that 
told out with such inexhaustible fulness the unsearchable 
riches of Christ his Lord, now sings that new song with 
multitudes around the throne. 

"What was it that gave Charles Haddon Spurgeon his 
power ? What may we learn from the testimony of his life ? 
Is it not this above all things, that the glorious gospel of the 
blessed God which so permeated his whole being, and 
which he so rejoiced in preaching, lives on, and has un- 
dying power within it to turn the hearts of the disobedient 
to the wisdom of the just ; to fascinate the humble, to abase 
them that sit on high ; to lift up the beggar from the dung- 
hill, and to set him among the princes in the very presence 
of God ? What was it that, when our brother lay stricken 
by mortal illness last summer, evoked such anxious solici- 
tude from the very steps of the throne, from the bishop's 
bench, from the great, the noble, throughout the land, 
and from millions of unknow^n folk who had hung upon his 
lips and read his writings ? What was it that made this man 
so great ? What is it that now causes princes to send their 
telegrams of sympathy to his bereaved widow ? that causes 
the Bishop of this diocese, with true brotherly Christian 
love and respect and esteem for his memory, to follow him to 
his grave ; what makes millions upon millions mourn to night 
throughout the whole world? What is it that made this 
man the object of such respect, such veneration, and such 
love? Was it his wide range of philosophy, his extensive 
scientific knowledge, his soaring intellect ? No ; the cause 
lies deeper than these. Was it his mother wit, his command 
of his native tongue, his genial face, his loving grasp ? No \ 
it was the firm grasp that he had of the gospel of Christ, 
the unflinching earnestness and faithfulness with which he 
preached it, the valour with which he stood in the gap when 



to the Pahii-Branch. 159 

men fled on all sides, his adherence to the doctrines of 
grace, and his determination to know nothing among men 
save Jesus Christ and him crucified. This it was that gave 
him his hold npon the hearts of thousands. 

'' I may well quote the eloquent, truthful, and noble 
words that, but three days ago, were uttered by the Arch- 
deacon of London, in St. Paul's Cathedral, as he said that 
it was 'the unswerving strength, the exuberant vitality of 
his faith in God's revelation to man through his Son Jesus 
Christ, combined with the weight and warmth of his zealous 
love for souls, that gave him that unbounded power which 
he exercised so loyally for Christian belief among the 
classes who are the very backbone of England, and through- 
out the English-speaking race.' 

" ' When he left the pulpit,' said Lord Houghton, 
'whatever your impressions might have been as a mere 
critical hearer when you came in, he left it an inspired 
apostle.' 

" He has now left the pulpit for ever, but his apostleship 
lives on in the quickened hearts and lives of innumerable 
hearers, and his inspiration is acknowledged of all men. 
That is why his funeral will be made almost a national 
occasion, and why . all good and devout men among his 
countrymen, without distinction of faith or sect, will stand 
in spirit around his grave. 

"A sympathetic, yet not uncritical writer, has lately 
observed, ' Mr. Spurgeon had but one sermon, but that 
sermon was always new. To him, Christianity was not an 
argument but a message, and a message to be believed at 
once by those who heard him.' No higher praise than that 
can be given to a minister of Christ's gospel. He took for 
his style and dignity, the apostolic words, 'We are am- 
bassadors for Christ.' He trod in his footsteps who, amid 
all the vapourings of the schools, poured contempt upon the 
philosophies, falsely so called, that filled the air, and said, 



i6o Fj'oih the Pulpit 

' I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus 
Christ and him crucified/ 

" When we think of the universal sorrow, of the world- 
wide -feeling of respect and love that his deeply4amented 
removal from us has aroused throughout the whole world, 
is it not a token for good that God's Spirit yet remaineth 
among us ; and that in these days of darkness, doubt, 
difficulty, unbelief, and intensified worldliness, wherever 
the gospel of Christ is firmly held and purely preached, 
multitudes are won and God is still glorified among us. 

"Speaking for myself, highly privileged to stand here 
to-night, I feel as one who has lost a very personal friend. 
We did not meet often, but when we did, how refreshing it 
was to look him in the face, to grasp his hand, and to hear 
his cheery voice. What a lift up he gave at Mildmay Con- 
ference not once nor twice only ; how he carried us with 
him in his enthusiastic and eloquent utterances of truth ! I 
remember what good it did me when, some years ago, after 
he had preached in some country church, I ventured to 
speak a word with him in the vestry. Putting his hand on 
my shoulder, he said, ' Well, brother, we always know where 
to find you.' That cheery word of kindly commendation 
made me feel six inches taller than I had ever felt before, 
and sent me on my way rejoicing. 

" Still more do I feel that in him I have lost in common 
with you all, a trusted leader, one to whom we instinctively 
looked for words of counsel when days were dark. He had 
almost intuitive, because God-given, discernment of the 
things that Israel ought to do in times of perplexity, and 
often uttered a word of vigorous cheer, loud and plain above 
the din of battle, which sent courage into all who could 
catch its notes. 

" It seems as if a light that had burned brightly and 
savingly on a stormy coast, and had Hghted many a ship 
safely into her haven, had suddenly been quenched. But 



to the Palm- Branch, i6i 

we look up and forward. We know that he who fitted 
Charles Haddon Spurgeon for the work to which he called 
him here on earth is well able to supply his place. It may 
not be exactly in the same way, for God has no duplicates 
in his museum ; it may be by men of other gifts and other 
powers ; but surely that life is a token that God has not left 
his people ; and that, as the century waxes old, and the 
coming of the Lord draweth nigh, he will send forth 
labourers into his vineyard. 

'* Upon us, however feeble our strength, however small 
our sphere, lies the responsibility of holding aloft, with all 
the vigour that God shall give us, the torch of truth which 
he has put into our hands ; of following, though it may be at 
a distance and humbly, the steps of that valiant leader and 
champion of our Lord Jesus Christ's cause on earth. To 
us it remains to defend his truth in our measure as he 
defended it ; and then, when we shall see our brother again, 
it shall be with the joy of feeling through God's grace that 
we have endeavoured to carry on the work that he has 
commenced His work will never end, his voice echoes 
still ; by his printed page, circulated in every land, and by 
thousands and thousands of souls whom God permitted him 
to win for Christ, Charles Spurgeon's voice will go on and 
on as long as this world shall last. As long as the names of 
Latimer and Ridley, of Baxter and Bunyan, of Wesley and 
of Whitefield are known and loved, so long will the name 
of Charles Haddon Spurgeon be esteemed and remembered. 
God grant us grace to follow his steps, for Christ's sake." 

Mr. Ira D. Sankey said : " I feel it a very great privi- 
lege to meet here with the thousands who gather around 
this bier, to pay some little note of homage to one who 
has done so much for me. That voice is silenced for ever 
on earth, but who of us here cannot recall its clarion tones 
as it has moved us from time to time in this great temple. 

II 



i62 From the Ptdpit 

It has always been my custom, when coming from my own 
land to this country, to visit this Tabernacle, to have my 
torch lighted anew for the work in which I have been for 
years engaged ; and never have I come into this building 
without receiving a blessing from that grand man whom I 
remember so well standing in this honoured spot, proclaim- 
ing the glorious gospel of the Son of God. I have now 
come from Scotland, where, for over three months, Mr, 
Moody and I have been holding services throughout the 
country, preaching the same old gospel that fell from the 
lips of that honoured man ; and I bear testimony to-night 
in the name of my Master, that the old gospel has not lost 
its power. 

"For years we have watched England and Scotland 
from our own shores, and a few lighthouses along this 
coast always attracted our eye. None shone so brightly as 
the torch that was burning continually in this Tabernacle. 
When darkness seemed to be spreading over the religious 
world, we would often cast longing eyes to London, and 
watch what this great captain was saying and doing. We 
always found inspiration from this pulpit, and always felt 
that in him we had a friend who would stand against all 
foes, a leader that we could safely follow. Many a prayer 
has come across the sea for him, from those who never had 
the joy of hearing his magnificent voice, and they are in 
sympathy with us to-night. Our land loves Charles Haddon 
Spurgeon. The Church of God on yonder shore has 
looked to him for years \ and now he has gone, they 
will continue to pray that God may bless the people at 
the Tabernacle, and send them a man after his own 
heart to preach the old gospel, the power of God unto 
salvation. 

" I learnt from the Pastor of this church, how to use the 
voice that God had given me, that I might preach to thou- 
sands who h^ve assembled in our great congregations 



to the Palm-Branch, 163 

throughout this country and our own land. I might almost 
say that he taught me how to sing the praises of God. I 
have held him up as an example to hundreds of congre- 
gations, as a man who could inspire his people to worship 
in hymns of praise, by devoting time to the reading of 
the hymn, and then himself standing and singing with the 
people. I hope this example may be largely followed by 
the ministers of the gospel. The praise of God is a part 
of the worship, and should not be slighted. 

" I bring to-night, to this great congregation, loving 
messages from Mr. Moody. When he heard that this great 
man of God had passed away, the first thing he said was, 
* I want to go to London to stand by the grave of him who 
has done so much for me.' C. H. Spurgeon has been a 
constant inspiration and joy to D. L. Moody. He wanted 
to come to the funeral, but we could not both of us come 
away at once, so he said, * You go, Mr. Sankey, and sing 
a hymn in honour of that dear man of God.' He remains 
yonder preaching the gospel, winning souls to Christ ; just 
where dear Mr. Spurgeon would have him to be. 

•* I will not take up time further, but sing a little hymn 
that I think may be appropriate for this occasion. It is 
said that the early Christians, to express their certainty 
of seeing their friends who had passed away, only bade 
them * Good-night,' so sure were they of meeting them 
on the Resurrection morning. I will sing a little hymn 
based on that fact, and may God bless the singing to all 
our hearts." 

Mr. Sankey then sang, with exquisite feeling, the hymn 
beginning — 

** Sleep on beloved, sleep and take thy rest, 
Lay down thy head upon thy Saviour's breast ; 
We love thee well, but Jesus loves thee best, 
Good-night 1 Good-night ! Good-night ! " 



164 From the Pulpit 

Rev. Canon Palmer, M.A., Rector of Newington, in 
which parish the Tabernacle is situated, said : — " It requires 
some courage to attempt to make you hear my voice after the 
pathetic sounds to which you have just listened. The Pastor 
for whom you mourn, if he was remarkable for one thing 
more than another, it was for his fearlessness in speaking the 
truth. He spoke the truth through evil report and good 
report, without caring either for praise or blame of men, but 
only for the opinion of his Master. I am sure, therefore, 
that you, in this great Tabernacle, have been taught by him 
not merely to hear truth, but to bear truth ; and you will 
bear with me if, at the outset, I venture to speak some words 
of truth with respect to myself. I cannot but remember 
the only other time that I stood in this place. The occasion 
of my visit was the return of a missionary of the Church of 
England from Japan, who came bearing a message from a 
missionary in Japan connected with your own communion — 
he had, I believe, been educated in your Pastors' College, 
at any rate, he looked to your Pastor for sympathy and for 
guidance. The missionary of the Church of England, Mr» 
Wright, had formerly been curate in the parish of St. Mary, 
Newington, and, as he was charged to deliver the message 
from your own missionary to Mr. Spurgeon himself, he WTOte 
to me and asked if I could arrange an interview for him. I 
wrote to Mr. Spurgeon, and the answer I received to my 
request was : — 

" * Dear Sir, — At this present time it is still an effort to 
get in and out of the carriage, will you therefore come to 
me ? I think it most kind of you to write to me. Would 
you like to come to my vestry at the Tabernacle on Monday 
at six, or on Wednesday at three ? Would you send word 
to the Tabernacle on Sunday morning, for, as I am going 
away, everybody wants to see me during the next few days, 
almost as if I were going •' to that bourne," etc' 



to the Palm-Branch, 165 

" I came to the Tabernacle, and spent several hours hei e, 
and in the course of a very interesting conversation with 
Mr. Spurgeon, our remarks turned in the direction of the 
Church Catechism. He said to me : — 

" * I learnt that when I was a boy, and there is a great 
deal in it which I think very good/ 

** I playfully rejoined, * If you had thought it all very 
good perhaps you might have been Archbishop of Canter- 
bury.' 

"Now I am sure you will suffer •me to say that I, at 
least, think it all very good, and you would think the worse 
of me, as a minister of the Church, if I did not. For if 
there are parts of the Church Catechism with which Mr. 
Spurgeon did not agree, and with which you do not agree, 
there are parts of it, at least, with regard to which we are one. 
I am sure that everyone in this Tabernacle would repeat, 
if it were necessary, the answer to the question, * What dost 
thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief? ' * First, I 
learn to beHeve in God the Father, who hath made me, and 
all the world ; secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed 
me, and all mankind ; thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who 
sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.' 

** There are many things in which I agree with you as well as 
in that. I agree with you in admiration for a Pastor from whose 
eloquent lips thrilling and heartfelt words shall be heard in 
this life no more. I agree with you in sympathy as to the 
perplexity which you must feel in finding someone to be, at 
any rate at once, all to you that he has been to you. He 
was no doubt the greatest preacher of this century. In the 
pulpit at St. Paul's last Sunday there was testimony to that. 
There is no one whom I can think of who could have held 
these thousands together Sunday after Sunday, and year 
after year, as he did. And as the rector of this parish I am 
here to testify that he was a benefit to every denomination, 
for he was the great foe to indifference. When the voices 



1 66 From the Ptilpit 

of other men would deepen apathy, his voice, like the voice 
of a trumpet, aroused men and compelled them to think. The 
gospel which he preached was that saying which is * worthy 
of all acceptation,' and which all Christians accept, that 
* Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ' ; and if 
I should not agree with the definition of election which you 
might give, I should at least be in accord with you in 
heartily believing that he whose earthly tabernacle lies 
before us is one of the elect. 

" Who had a heart of compassion amongst men if such a 
heart did not beat in the breast of your Pastor ? That heart 
which beats no more was ever warm with compassion. No 
one could speak to him, no one could hear the tender thrill 
of his voice, without at once recognizing the compassion in 
his heart Let the Almshouses, which he founded ; let the 
Orphanages, where the fatherless found shelter regardless of 
the creed of their parents, testify for many a long year to 
the greatness of the compassion which beat in that great 
heart of his. 

*'Here, perhaps, it will not be ungrateful to you if I 
refer to another of his letters, the first one which I ever 
received from him. I was reminded of it just now when I 
entered this assembly by the sound of the bell. It was out 
of that bell, not a musical sound I admit, that our inter- 
course arose. This was the letter Mr. Spurgeon wrote to 
me. The year is not put down, but '■ July 6 ' is the date 
upon it. It was a particularly hot and sultry July. 

" ' Nightingale Lane. 
" * Dear Sir, — I beg to call your attention to the great 
disturbance caused by the ringing of the bells at St. Gabriel's, 
while the congregation at the Tabernacle is engaged in prayer. 
I reminded your predecessor that no right of bell-ringing 
belongs to any but a parish church, and informed him that 
I really must appeal to the law to stop the needless nuisance. 



to the Palm- Branch* 167 

I am sure it is far from me to wish to interfere with the 
peculiarities of my neighbours, but when we are disturbed 
by the clanging of a loud bell I am obliged to complain. 
The hours at which we are at worship are after 6.30 on 
Sunday, from 7 to 8.30 on Monday, and 7 on Thursday. 
Wishing to be on good terms with all in the parish, I trust 
you will not allow the bell-ringers to disturb us further, and 
will substitute a few strokes for the many which are now given.' 

"I have no copy of my answer, but I think I could 
remember its effect tolerably well. It was, that I did not 
know what the law might order, but I was quite sure of what 
the gospel required. // required that my neighbours should 
not be unnecessarily troubled, and I would give orders at 
once that the bell-ringing should be confined to a few strokes, 
and that I had no doubt that the bell ringer would be very 
much obliged to Mr. Spurgeon for mitigating his labours in 
that extremely hot weather. He wrote me at once. 

" * Dear Sir, — I am exceedingly obliged by your prompt 
and Christian reply. I felt it needful to make my protest 
against the bell-ringing somewhat strong, that I might not 
appear to be asking a favour merely, but claiming a right not 
to be disturbed. Otherwise the lapse of years gives right to a 
custom against which no protest is entered. This, and no 
unfriendliness to you, prompted what you considered to be 
a threat. I can only hope that future correspondence 
may be, on my part, on a more pleasant subject, and, on 
your part, may be in the same generous tone.' 

" I had occasion to write to him afterwards, but I find 
that his replies are not all in my possession. They have 
been carried off by other people. One, I know, is in the 
possession of a bishop, and another in the hands of an arch- 
deacon, so that I am afraid I shall never be able to get my 



1 68 From the Pulpit 

correspondence again. But I afterwards referred to this 
little incident of bell-ringing, and he wrote to me and said : — 

" ' I have been very ill since I returned, but I am now 
better and ready for work. I am so glad the bell-ringing 
led to your hearty letter. God bless you.' 

" Now, I ask you, was not that a man worth knowing ? 
Does not that show his kindness of heart ? He was perfectly 
right to protect his congregation from disturbance, but, mark 
his generosity. Directly he saw that I was ready to look at 
the matter in a reasonable way, his heart overflowed with 
kindness. When the Secretary of the Hospital Sunday Fund 
proposed that we should have a joint meeting to promote 
the cause of hospitals, I want you again to mark your late 
Pastor's considerate kindness. He at once supposed that I 
should not like to come to the Tabernacle, and so he said to 
the secretary : 

" * I do not think the Rector would like to come to me, 
but I should be very glad to come to him, if he will invite me.' 

" So I wrote at once and invited him to have dinner with 
me beforehand on the evening of the meeting. He answered : — 

" * Right joyfully would I have accepted your hospitality, 
but my own meeting does not close till 8.30, and it is a very 
special one. Its speciality I was not aware of till this 
week. I hope I may come and see you at some other time, 
and take a cup of tea with you. This time I must decline. 
This is unavoidable, and not of my choice. It would give 
me great pleasure to have an hour with you at the Rectory 
or here,' 

" There were other letters, but I will only refer to one 
more, as it relates to an important movement, and it aptly 
illustrates his humility of mind. Some of you may remember 



to the Palm-Branch. 169 

that I was appointed by the Bishop as Secretary to a 
movement for having some lectures on Socialism at the 
Lambeth Baths. I wrote to Mr. Spurgeon, seeking his 
co-operation. I asked him, at any rate, if he would put up 
some bills at the Tabernacle, and he wrote at once — 

" Send the bills to the Tabernacle for our lobbies ; they 
shall be put up there. I find notices to be given out at 
divine service are not congruous, and in making a dis- 
criminating choice I might give offence ; so I give out only 
our own needful ones, and wish to dispense even with 
these. I rely upon the lecturers not to give way to the 
Socialistic idea, for this means the utter subversion of 
society. Faith in the eternal verities will come through the 
force of truth, by the Holy Spirit, and not through any 
yielding to popular remonstrances. The subject will need 
careful handling. I feel refreshed, but I have stern work 
before me. What should I do without my Divine Helper ? ' 

" Our Lord says we are to know the elect by their fruits, 
and Mr. Spurgeon put on all those Christian virtues and 
excellencies which are indications of the elect in an 
eminent degree. It was not that he wore them for a short 
time, but that he wore them for a long time. When he 
was at Menton, I had occasion to write to him. Having an 
impression that he was of the same age as myself, I put 
the question to him, and at the bottom of the post-card, 
which came in reply, he wrote these words — ' Yes, fifty- 
seven is my number until June 19, 1892. May you make 
it seventy-seven at least.' 

" His preaching, unlike the preaching of many others, 
was emineritly illustrated by his practice. You will remem- 
ber not only the lessons of his words, but the lessons of his 
life. I trust that I shall remember them also. I have that 
hoary head which is 1 eferred to in the text of one of Mr. 



I/O From the Pulpit 

Spurgeon's first sermons; and, therefore, I hope that my 
fellow ministers who are near me will pardon me if I say, 
that, great as may be the difference between ministers of 
one denomination and another, there is one thing which 
belongs to us all, which Mr. Spurgeon has helped to teach 
me, and which, I trust, I shall never forget, that over all that 
belongs to us, over our orthodoxy, over our eloquence, and 
over our energy, we must put on that one cloak or dress to 
which the apostle referred, if we too are to be considered 
amongst the elect — namely, that charity which the apostle 
calls, * the bond of perfectness.' *' 

Colonel Griffin, President of the Baptist Union, said : — 
•* We are gathered here to-night under the shadow of a great 
sorrow. A prince and a great man has been called from our 
midst, and we sorrow most of all that we shall see his face 
no more. It is now at least twenty-five years since I first 
entered this great Tabernacle a stranger in London. I came 
here in common with thousands of strangers who visit this 
great metropolis. My first and great desire upon the first 
Sunday of my stay was to hear Charles Haddon Spurgeon. 
Little did I then think that I should ever get to enjoy any- 
thing like intimacy with the great man who occupied this 
platform. But, in the providence of God, my stay was 
prolonged, we became acquainted, we became fast friends, 
and although my intimacy with Mr. Spurgeon has not been 
that which many have enjoyed, I learnt to love him and 
to revere his memory. He has gone from us, gone to his 
eternal rest, but his works shall long follow him. 

"It was his delight to preach Christ Jesus and him 
crucified. He had but one text, but what a marvellous text 
it was, from which over 3,000 separate sermons could be 
preached, which have been scattered far and wide throughout 
the length and breadth of the world. One text, but it was 
the text for which the world was longing, * Christ, the Saviour 



to the Palm- Branch. 171 

of the world ' \ Christ and his cross was his song here on 
earth, and to-night he is rejoicing with Moses and the Lamb 
above. One text he had, rather let us say one Book, and 
from that Book he preached his thousands of sermons. One 
Book, in which he beUeved most fully, and which he accepted 
in all its entirety. In that Book he found first the promise 
of a Saviour to redeem ; then the prophecy regarding that 
Christ ; then the realization of the prophecies by Christ on 
earth ; his grand mission, his glorious work : his sufferings 
and his death. This was where Mr. Spurgeon found his 
power ; it was in telling the ' Old, old story of Jesus and 
his love ' that he won the multitudes. Those who knew 
him best, and enjoyed close intimacy with him, can re- 
joice that they were ever privileged thus to hold com- 
munion with an * honest man, the noblest work of God.' 

" There were some that differed from Mr. Spurgeon. He 
and I, although occupying different positions, and sometimes 
apparently antagonistic, have never had an unfriendly word, 
nor has he ever breathed aught else than a spirit of Christian 
love and fervent charity. It is my privilege to stand here, 
not for my own worth or individual merit, but because of 
my official position representing the Baptist Union of Great 
Britain and Ireland. Mr. Spurgeon thought fit to sever his 
relations with that Union. We honoured him for his sincerity 
of purpose, although we were sorry he saw it wise to with- 
draw from us. Amongst the members of that Union to-day, 
throughout the length and breadth of this country, there is 
but one common thought, one common feeling of intense 
love, and earnest respect for him who was a prince in Israel. 

" He is not dead ; no, brothers, he still hves I There is 
no death to such as he ! 

* The stars go down 
To rise upon some fairer shore ; 
And bright in heaven's jewelled crown 
They shine for evermore.' 



172 From the Pulpit 

Mr. Spurgeon has left us, but we rejoice that his spirit still 
lives. Even if you were to close this mighty Tabernacle, 
to dissolve the College, to stop the ingathering of the 
orphans, to blot out the thousands of sermons that have 
been scattered far and wide, Mr. Spurgeon would still live, 
and his influence would still be felt thoughout this great 
universe. Generation after generation, the tradition will be 
handed down of him who laboured here, and whom God 
enabled to be a minister of his eternal truth. 

" We mourn, and yet we mourn not as those who are without 
hope. The God whom Mr. Spurgeon served is still ' God 
over all, blessed for ever.' We will trust him ; and while 
he, who was our leader, has gone before, we will seek to 
follow in his footsteps, when God shall call us to our 
eternal rest, that we may be meet for that inheritance 
which is above. My heart is full; there is much that I 
could say, but time will not permit. Oh, may all in this 
mighty assembly, with those who have preceded us to-day 
in the other services, and the more than fifty thousand who 
passed by this bier yesterday, remember, as we think of 
him who has gone, that his power and strength came from 
the God and the living Saviour, whom he so faithfully 
represented ! May we be led to imitate the example of 
him, who, through faith and patience, now inherits the 
promises ; and who, while we are meeting here, is rejoicing 
in the fulness of that light, which comes from the throne 
of glory on high ! '* 

Rev. A. G. Barley, of Paris, said : " As one of the most 
humble and unknown of the many workers whom our 
beloved President enabled to take their place in the Lord's 
vineyard, I come to speak on behalf of the Baptists of 
France. Until yesterday I fully expected that my honoured 
colleague, M. Saillens, would have performed this sad 
duty. He was, however, yesterday stricken by evident signs 



to the Palm- Branch. 173 

of the dread epidemic, and I have therefore to stand in 
his place and to speak in his name. Being an Englishman, 
I felt that I should not be able, in my own words, to express 
the feelings of French Christians, and therefore I asked 
that a French message might be written for me to read. 
The address is as follows : — 

" We, the pastors, evangelists, and members of the French 
Baptist Churches, desire to bring our homage, and the 
tribute of our respectful love, to the memory of the great 
man whose loss is mourned to-day. 

" It seems to us appropriate that our voices, though few, 
should be heard at this sorrowful hour. It was to our 
country that Mr. Spurgeon came for many successive years, 
to seek rest and recuperation; it was on French soil that 
his last days were spent; his glorious soul has ascended 
to heaven from France. He loved our clear sky, our blue 
sea, our fragrant flowers — he loved our people. 

"There are other and higher reasons for which we feel 
a right to claim Spurgeon as partly our own. This great 
Puritan of the nineteenth century bore a strong resemblance 
to the greatest Frenchman who ever lived — John Calvin. 

" The same attachment to the divine revelation ; the same 
strong, firm faith in the sovereignty of the all-wise God ; the 
same disdain for mere human theories, traditions, and 
fashions ; the same rock-like fidelity to the truth, however 
difficult to believe, however hard to practise — these charac- 
teristics will make Calvin and Spurgeon appear before the eyes 
of posterity as men of the same mental and spiritual mould. 
Men such as these, moreover, are too great to be monopolized 
by any single church or nation ; they are possessed, in their 
own degree, of the great cosmopolitan spirit of Christ himself, 
who, though a Jew by natural birth, is the elder brother of us 

" The influence of Spurgeon upon modern Christianity in 



174 From the Pulpit 

France, though indirect, has been great. Only once was he 
able to comply with our oft-repeated requests to preach in 
Paris ; the manifold demand of his ministry and his physical 
weakness compelled him to hurry through our country, in 
every city of which he might have had large and eager 
audiences. But though he did not speak, his voice was heard 
through the printed sermons, many of which were translated 
and have been a means of salvation, of comfort, and of joy 
to thousands of souls. Some of us remember how, when 
we were still young, the marvellous report of God's blessing 
upon the youthful English preacher made a great impression 
upon us. The crumbs which fell from your richly-spread 
table were eagerly sought by isolated Christians, who, thirty 
years ago, lived under the persecuting hand of the Empire, 
when no dissenting place of worship was allowed to be 
opened ; when meetings of more than twenty persons were 
prohibited \ when the Baptist pastor of Paris was even for- 
bidden to read the Bible in private houses with his friends. 
Who can tell how much, in those trying times, Spurgeon's 
sermons helped to maintain the faith, the patience and the 
courage of God's scattered people in France ? 

" The recent attitude taken by Mr. Spurgeon with regard 
to the New Theology has been a wonderful encouragement 
to those French Protestants, who still hold the faith for which 
their fathers suffered. The struggle between Faith and 
Reason, between the Bible and 'Science falsely so-called,' 
is raging in France even more than in England. The con- 
troversy has been long enough to show us where the new 
doctrines will surely lead their followers. How thankful, 
therefore, felt the few witnesses of the Truth among us, 
when Spurgeon's voice was heard — so clear, so uncom- 
promising, so full of assurance ! That doctrine must be 
true which is preached by a man on whose altar the heavenly 
fire has so often and so unmistakably descended. 

" One of the last productions of Mr. Spurgeon's inde- 



to the Palm-Branch, 175 

fatigable pen (now laid aside for ever), viz., The Greatest 
Fight in the World, has created a profound interest in 
our French Protestant Churches. One of our reUgious 
periodicals has characterized it as * Spurgeon's Swan Song.' 
More of his works will, we trust, be made accessible to our 
people, and thus for France, as for England and for the 
whole world, it will be true, for generations to come, yea 
even as long as his dust shall await the resurrection call, 
that he * being dead, yet speaketh.' 

" We mourn with you, dear English brethren, and yet we 
would not grudge to our departed brother the rest which he 
now enjoys. His hfe has been wholly to the glory of God — 
must we not believe also, however difficult it may be to do 
so, that the glory of God is magnified in his death ? 

"Our Saviour lives still. The cause which Spurgeon 
defended is imperishable. The Lord never took up an 
Elijah to heaven, without leaving an Elisha behind, on 
whose shoulders fell the mantle of the departed. May we 
all take courage, and, receiving a new baptism of the Spirit, 
take up, with a strong grip, the weapons which these valiant 
hands have for ever laid aside, in order to receive the crown 
of victory ! 

" On behalf of the Baptist Churches of France, 

"R. Saillens." 

Mr. C. Russell Hurditch, the last speaker of the 
evening, took the two texts Mr. Spurgeon heard the day 
in which he found rest in Christ, and grouped all his hfe 
around them. His preaching to unconverted men was ever 
" Look unto Me," and his teaching for the people of God 
was constantly of the privileges and power which became 
ours when "Accepted in the Beloved." 

Rev. A. T. PiERSON, D.D., announced the hymn, " Give 
me the wings of faith to rise," which being sung, the meeting 
closed with the Benediction. 



FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC. 



On Wednesday night, February loth, 1892, the service 
arranged for the general pubHc, and announced to commence 
at 10.30 p.m., began about ten o'clock, the building then 
being entirely filled, a great proportion of the audience 
being men. 

Rev. J. Grainger, of Christ Church, announced the 

well-known hymn, " There is a fountain filled with blood," 
a great favourite of Mr. Spurgeon's, and it was sung with zest 

Rev. H. O. Mackey, of Peckham Park Road, led in 
prayer, entreating a manifest blessing at the close of the 
day so memorable. 

Rev. J. Manton Smith, having first pathetically sung 
" Rock of Ages," the congregation joining in the last verse, 
then said : " Thousands of people with weary hearts have 
gathered in this place from time to time, to listen to him 
whose body is now lying in that coffin, and he, with a faithful 
finger, like the mariner's compass, always pointed those 
burdened ones to where alone they could find true rest. 
That rest is in Jesus ; and ' Jesus ' was the sum and sub- 
stance of his life. Some years ago I saw, in Southampton, 
a notice on a certain house. The occupier of it lived and 
carried on his business in the same premises, and this 
signboard said, ' Workshop heloiv ; residence above' Our 
dear Pastor knew what it was to work below; his study 



From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch, 177 

was his workshop ; and now he has gone to his rest, after 
his Hfe of toil. How well he did his work, God knew, and 
God will reward him for it. But even in the midst of his 
labours on earth, he knew that rest which comes to those 
who trust in Christ. There is no rest to the soul apart from 
Christ ; and if there are any here to-night who are weary 
and heavy laden, we invite you by the memory of the 
blessed ministry just closed to come where you may find 
sweet rest. 

" Our Pastor has gone to his long rest ; his service 
is over, but his works are permanent. They will remain 
and speak, thought he speaketh not. Oh, what vigour he 
had! what singleness of eye. 'He walked with God,' 
like Enoch, and he had this blessed testimony that he 
pleased God. He did not always satisfy other people, but 
he did not live to please any but his Lord and Master. 

" I heard of a man who was taking tickets at a railway 
station, from an impatient crowd. He would only let them 
pass one at a time, and someone said, ' My man, you are 
not very popular with these people.' He answered, ' I do 
not care about that as long as I am popular with the man 
up there,' pointing to the station-master who was looking 
out of the window. Our Pastor acted upon this plan. As 
long as he had the testimony that he pleased God, he cared 
not who was offended. For him to live was Christ 
Methinks that if it were possible for him to rise up out of 
that coffin to-night and stand before this congregation, he 
would crave no higher privilege, nor covet any higher joy, 
than just once more to ring out the old, old gospel, which it 
was the joy of his hfe to proclaim. It was the one passion 
of his being to invite sinners to the Saviour. How sweet 
the name of Jesus sounded when with his clear bell-like 
voice it was uttered in the ear of the believer, or sounded 
in the sinner's ear, many here remember right well. 

"But we need not speak so much of him, who has left us, 

12 



178 From the Pulpit 

as of his God, who is still with us. Our Pastor's God is 
our God. How it would rejoice his spirit if he knew 
to-night that over his dead body you yielded your broken 
heart to his Lord ! It would add to his joy in glory. 
Those who have listened to his word on earth, but have not 
obeyed it, will perhaps hear the silent voice, which now 
speaks to them; for there is a silence that is better than 
speech : even the dumbness of that coffin is eloquence 
to us. 

" I think I can hear a voice from it, which seems to say 
to me, 'Tell the people about Jesus.' I knew a man in 
this city, who preached Jesus Christ with all his heart. I 
heard him. preaching his last sermon, as he stood in the 
pulpit supported by two of his deacons, because he was so 
weak. Turning round to me afterwards, he said, * Here are 
my pulpit notes, brother; if they are any use to you, you 
can have them.' 

*' The next day he was carried to the London Hospital, 
and put in a little bed in a room set apart for him, over the 
clock in the Whitechapel Road. The doctor came and 
after he examined him, said, ' If you will consent to undergo 
an operation, I think we may save your life ; if not, cancer 
will do its deadly work in a fortnight' 

** My friend answered, *I will consent to the operation, 
for the sake of the church ; I should hke to preach again.' 

**They came to chloroform him, but he said, 

" * No, not yet. Let me go to the operator's room first.' 

" Then they took off his clothes, and dressed him in a 
scarlet robe. That seemed to strengthen him, he thought 
it was like following his Master, Jesus: they clothed him 
in scarlet He was supported into the operator's room, he 
mounted the table, and knelt down. Then looking at the 
doctors in the gallery, who were waiting to see the operation, 
he put his hands together and said, 

" * Gentlemen, if I live I live unto the Lord ; if I die I 



to the Palm-Branch, 179 

die unto the Lord ; living or dying I am the Lord's. I am 
ready.' 

" They chloroformed him, and the operation took place. 
I went round the same night to his little room, and tapped 
on the door, which was ajar. 

** The nurse said, ' You cannot come in ; mortification has 
set in ; your friend is dying.* 

" He heard my voice, and said, * Yes, you can let him 
come.' 

" When I went in, his wife said, * Do not speak, he is past 
that,' but he replied, 

** * No, I am not,' he said, * Come to my bedside,' and 
he put out his hand to grip mine. I almost fancy I feel the 
chilly sweat now. 

" * Oh, brother,* he said, * I want to tell you how precious 
Jesus has been to me through all my suffering. Take my 
dying message, tell the people about Jesus ! Wherever you 
go, tell the people about Jesus 1 As long as blood shall flow 
through your veins, as long as the breath is in your body, 
tell the people — tell the people about Jesus ! ' And he fell 
back to be with Jesus. 

" Sometimes when I am weary in the work, though, thank 
God, I am never weary of it, I seem to hear the echo of 
the old man's voice, saying to me, * Tell the people about 
Jesus ! ' There lies one who did it constantly ; all through 
his life, that was his theme. As long as he had breath left, 
it was used in speaking about his Master. Methinks he 
would say to-night, to every student here, to every church 
member, to every Christian, ' Tell the people about Jesus ! ' 
God help us who know the message to tell it, and those 
who hear to receive it. Amen." 

Mr. Ira D. Sankey then said: "About eight months ago 
there passed across the Atlantic ocean the intelligence that 
Mr. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was exceedingly ill. I was 



i8o From the Pulpit 

in the city of Minneapolis, in the Western States, attending 
a convention of over 12,000 delegates, and when that 
despatch was read by the Chairman of the meeting, a great 
hush fell upon that audience. Then it flashed upon my 
mind, I will sing a hymn — * Only remembered by what I 
have done,'' — and I asked that great congregation to bow 
their heads in silent prayer for your Pastor here, while I sang 
those words. As an indication of the hold that this man 
of God had upon the people there, the whole congregation 
bowed like one man, and an earnest petition was sent up to 
God that he might spare his servant. Little did I think 
then that it would be my privilege in eight months to come 
and sing the same song here on this consecrated spot. May 
I ask the friends here to bow their heads, and pray that 
God may bless the message which has been delivered, and 
which is to be delivered, and the message of this song, so 
that souls may be won for Christ ; and that from this hour 
many may consecrate their lives to him whom Mr. Spurgeon 
so faithfully served, and whom he declared to the multitudes 
throughout this land, and throughout all lands." 

Mr. Sankey then sang the new arrangement of the hymn, 
" Only remembered by what I have done." 

Rev. W. Y. FuLLERTON said : " Ten nights ago, a thou- 
sand miles from here, in a small room on the first floor, there 
lay upon his bed our beloved pastor. Around him stood a 
little group of loving friends. Ten nights ago, almost at this 
very hour, the drowsy eyes were closed in sleep, and the 
racked body was stilled for ever. That precious body is 
here to-day, having been, by the good care of God, brought 
safely over the sea ; but Charles Haddon Spurgeon is gone. 
He has left behind him millions of bleeding hearts. There 
are many of you here who feel, as I do, that this is our 
greatest earthly loss. 



to the Palm-Branch, i8i 

" Mrs. Browning once asked Charles Kingsley the secret 
of his beautiful character, of his fortitude, of his nobility. 
With great tenderness, he answered : * I had a friend.' 
Looking down at that coffin to-night, nothing more appro- 
priate can come from my hps, * I had a friend.' Any little 
usefulness in my life has been principally owing, on the 
human side, to that friend whose body lies before us. 
Perhaps I ought not to speak all I feel, but I cannot refrain 
from saying that I would willingly have gone to the grave 
to-morrow instead of him, if only he could have stood here 
in my vigour again to preach the glorious Gospel of the 
blessed God. 

**Many of us are so very sorry that we have not yet 
adequately grasped our loss ; we can scarcely bear to think 
of it, it is so overwhelming. Yet, why should we be sorry ? 
When you come to argue with yourself, why should you so 
greatly mourn? Three months ago when our dear friend 
went to the sunny South, after that terrible illness of 
his, we were glad — glad, though he was going to a strange 
country, because he was going from fog to sunshine. We 
were content to bear the exile, because it was not to be for 
ever; we thought he would soon be better, and then we 
should see him again. 

" Let us be more content to-night, for he has gone, not to 
a strange country, but to the Home-land, and he is well. 
He is nearer to us now than he was at Menton ; it would 
have taken two days of quick travelling to have reached him 
there ; but if God willed it, we might now reach him in five 
minutes. Why, then, should we be sorry ? Let us lift up 
our hearts to-night, as we come to the very hour when his 
spirit passed away to be with his God 

" It is not exile, rest on high ; 
It is not sadness, free from strife. 
To fall asleep is not to die ; 
To dwell with Christ is better life ! " 



i'82 From the Pulpit 

There is a text which was very dear to him, whose mortal 
remains rest in that coffin — the text that brought light to his 
soul. It will be the motto of my discourse : ' Look unto 
me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth : for I am 
God, and there is none else.' — Isaiah xlv. 22. 

" You know the story, how on a wintry morning, in a 
little chapel, from the lips of an unknown preacher, that text 
came with power to the heart of C. H. Spurgeon ; you know 
how the preacher picked out the stranger, and looking to 
him said, * Young man, you seem to be in trouble : look 
unto Jesus.' Now we are all in trouble, and I would repeat 
that word, * Look unto Jesus.* 

" This text in Isaiah is not only the message that brought 
life to Mr. Spurgeon, it is the history of his life. In that 
light let us view it. 

I. "I would say, to begin with, that pre-eminently he was 
A MAN OF God. * I am God, and there is none else,' was the 
central truth of his being. He learned that there was one 
God, and he knew him. Not only was he a godly man, 
for there is many a godly man who is not a man of God in 
this sense. Many a man who lives a godly life, who does not 
realize the presence of God about him as Charles Haddon 
Spurgeon did. Oh, how near God came to him ! Once 
when he came back from his rest in France, he came down 
these steps like a very lion, and standing in his pulpit, he 
preached a sermon that will never fade from the memory of 
those who heard it : * I have yet to speak on God's behalf.' 
God was his Alpha and Omega. Almost the last letter that 
he wrote to us, urging us to pray that the scourge of influ- 
enza might be taken away, bore as its burden that the people 
seemed to have forgotten God, 

He dwelt in the presence of God. He knew him ; he had 
communion with him; his whole life was spent in the 
preaching of God to the people. I have had some heart- 
to heart talk with him when he was here, but he has had 



to the Palm-Branch, 183 

closer heart-to-heart talk with God than ever I had with 
him. I remember once, when I asked him about his 
method of prayer, he told me it was on this platform, 
here in the presence of the people, that he had his 
nearest approaches to the throne of the Eternal. He was 
lifted up, even to the very presence of the great God, as 
he stood here praying with his people, whom he loved so 
well 

" Moreover, he rested upon God's covenant. The next 
verse to the text says, ' I have sworn by myself, the word 
is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not 
return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue 
shall swear.' That is the covenant that God has made with 
his people, that he will save them, and that he will give 
their world to Christ. There are. some of you who think 
that Mr. Spurgeon imagined that things were always going 
wrong. He saw the wrong, but he knew that through wrong, 
and in spite or it, God worked out his own purposes, 
and that the earth should yet * be filled with the knowledge 
of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.' It shall 
be so. He was like OHver Cromwell, whose last words 
were, * The covenant is one. Faith in the covenant is my 
only support, and if we believe not, he abideth faithful.' He 
was like Cromwell in his faith in the omnipotent Jehovah, 
and in the boldness which springs from such faith. He 
knew that God would reign. 

"Dwelling in God's presence, and resting upon God's 
covenant, he feared none else. * I am God, and there is none 
else.' He did not seek to please men, but to witness to 
them of the verities of our faith. He keenly felt adverse 
criticism, but he did not fear it. His vision of God made 
him strong to do and to suffer. God was so much to him 
that there was practically to him * none else.' 

** For such a man, a man who lived with God here, to 
go and live with God there, is no very great change. It 



184 From the Pulpit 

is only a higher development of the same life. It is only 
as if God, shutting the book of this life, said to him, * Here 
endeth the first lesson.' The second lesson, a brighter and 
more glorious one, has been begun, where now he knows, 
even as he is known. 

11. ** In the second place, I will say of dear Mr. 
Spurgeon, that he was a man of the people. His sym- 
pathy went out to ' all the ends of the earth.' Se lived on 
the earth. He did not live in the clouds. He was a man 
amongst men ; he was absolutely the most common-sense 
minister of the gospel I have ever met ; and I have met a 
good many. He was a true man. I am glad to see so 
many men at this service. Brothers ! if you want to be 
true men, look unto Spurgeon's Saviour. You cannot say 
there was anything mawkish or sentimental about him, any 
unmanly weakness. None ! He was a man, a man in 
Christ, a whole man ! Would you be a real man ? Look 
unto Christ, to whom that man of God looked, and you, 
too, will be every inch a man. 

^^ He helped the people. The man who has most 
sympathy with Christ can best aid those around him ! It 
was the glory of C. H. Spurgeon, that, like the Saviour, 
' the common people heard him gladly.' He did not cater 
to reach the ear of the superfine few : he wanted to speak 
to the people. His heart was with the people, and he had 
experience of men such as very few have. In their tempta- 
tions and their trials, he could give them a brother's hand. 
Many of you, when you came to hear him, found he put 
himself alongside y9u, and brought life and healing to 
you. 

" He girded the world with his ijifluence. * All the ends of 
the earth' heard from him the truth of God. Very few 
men have helped to accomplish the text more than the dear 
friend whom we have lost. Little did that Methodist 
preacher think that day, when that young man looked to 



to the Palm-Bra7ich. 185 

Christ, that all the ends of the earth were, through him, to 
hear the gospel ; but so it is — in every civilized land his 
message has been heard. He might have used Augustine's 
words more truly than Augustine : ' I have a whole Christ 
for my salvation ; a whole Bible for my staff; a whole 
church for my fellowship ; a whole world for my parish.' 
The whole earth is in his debt. Many a man at the ends of 
the earth, many a man in the backwoods of America, many 
a man in the bush of Australia, many a man in the islands 
of the sea, has, through his words, looked to the Saviour 
and begun to live the life of God. 

Ill, " He was a man of God ; he was a man of the 
people j and, in the third place, he desired to bring the 
PEOPLE TO God. This the text hints at, and it was true of 
him. He knew the people need to ' be saved.' 

^^ He did not flatter men, nor say soft things to please them. 
The crowds did not come to hear him because he made 
much of the dignity of human nature. He told the people 
the absolute truth about themselves, and never blinked the 
fact that they needed to be saved. His message was that 
sin was ruin ; that sin was hell ; but the people came to 
hear notwithstanding. They came because the truth he 
preached found an echo in their own heart, that is the 
only echo that has ever been in this building. God grant 
that the echo may be heard in the hearts of not a few 
to-night ! 

"Z^ entreated men to be saved. Why, I have heard him 
stand here and speak more like a mother than a preacher, 
as with his whole soul he implored people to turn to God. 
His faith in the purposes of God did not, as some say, make 
him ' heartless ' in his doctrine. He yearned over the souls 
of men. Oh, how Christ, his Master, yearns over you ! 
* Be saved ! ' Now, here, to-night, at this memorial service, 
the last night this precious body will ever rest in this Taber- 
nacle ; by the memory of the earnest words you have heard 



1 86 From the Pulpit 

from those sealed lips, * Be saved.' O men, O women, be 
saved ! 

*' He commanded people to be saved. His was the voice of 
authority. He did not speak as the scribes, but in God's 
name, and as an ambassador of Christ, he commanded his 
hearers to believe, even as we would command you to-night. 
I think that is what he would have us do. 

" Moreover, he expected his hearers to be saved ; he looked 
for it as a natural result of his ministry, and in like manner, 
we expect that in this meeting, many of you, who have 
hitherto rejected the message, shall be led by the solemn 
circumstances of our gathering, to receive it and live. When 
on Monday I saw that beautiful olive-wood coffin, with the 
two black seals, which had been placed upon it at Menton, 
still intact, I could not help thinking of another great 
earnest servant of Christ. He was a Silesian shoemaker, 
but he knew God, and many were blessed through his 
word. On the marble cross, which marks his grave to- 
day, there is the inscription, * Here rests Jacob Bohme, born 
of God, died in Christ, sealed with the Holy Spirit.' That 
would be a fitting inscription for the tomb where this body 
shall rest. Of God his servant was truly begotten ; in Christ 
he has sweetly fallen asleep ; and not only with this black 
seal on the coffin, but with the seal of the Spirit of God 
on his forehead he rests, claimed by the God of heaven, 
safe for evermore ! 

IV. " The last thing suggested by the text is this. Be- 
cause Mr. Spurgeon desired to bring the people to God, he 

THEREFORE POINTED THEM TO THE ChRIST OF GOD. The 

pith of all his message was ' Look unto Christ.' 

Ke 7iever pointed men to himself. I have heard him many 
times, but never yet have I heard him directing men to 
himself as the source of any blessing. Priestism he hated 
with a perfect hatred. Never was man more humble than 
he. He thought nothing of himself ; when the work was 



to the Palm-Branch. 187 

done he gave all the credit to God, who worked in him both 
to will and to do of his good pleasure. 

'* He blew the trampet soft and clear, 

That trembling sinners need not fear ; 
And then with louder note and bold, 
To raze the walls of Satan's hold ; 
The trumpet coming thus between, 

The hand that held it scarce was seen." 

We thought of the message, and not of the messenger, when 
we listened to his voice. He preached not himself, but 
Christ Jesus as Lord. 

**Zr^ had as his theme the just God and the Saviour, Even 
as it is written, * A just God and a Saviour, there is none 
beside me, look unto me ! ' He preached no new gospel ; 
he preached that God was a just God, and would punish 
sin ; that he was a Saviour and would receive the sinner. 
He had marvellous facility of illustration, great freshness of 
view, and unexhausted fertility of mind, yet it was ever the 
same old truth which he declared, *A just God and a 
Saviour. Look unto me.' Like King James, who always 
called for his old shoes, because they fitted him the best, 
he kept to the same grand gospel that he preached when 
he began his ministry. Yet Christ was more to him 
than his preaching. Christ was everything. He has left it 
on record, in one of his latest reviews of books, that he 
considered Samuel Rutherford's writings the nearest to the 
inspired Word. One of Rutherford's sentences well 
expresses the heart of our dear pastor : ' What astonishment 
shall be mine,' said that saintly man, ' when I first behold 
that fairest and most lovely face ! It would be heaven to 
me just to look through a hole of heaven's door to see 
Christ's countenance ! ' Now he has seen him ; it is at this 
moment almost midnight with us, but midnight is over for 
him ; ten full days he has been in the light of that beautiful 
countenance ! How can we sorrow for him ? No ! we are 
glad. We praise God on his behalf. He is in heavea We 



1 88 From the Pulpit 

are in the midst of sorrow, not for him, but for ourselves \ 
but Christ is with us. 

* And only heaven is better than to walk 
With Christ at midnight over moonless sea ! ' 

'The night may be dark, but if Christ is with us, over the 
billows we will go. Beneath this shadow we are almost 
sacred. 

The last thing I will say concerning this man of God 
is that he declared with all his might that salvation was by 
faith. He told men constantly that it was by looking to 
the Crucified One they would be saved. Not by looking to 
self. God grant that self may die within us, as truly as 
Spurgeon's body has died ! Not by looking to Spurgeon : he 
never preached that. He ever said while he was with us, 

* Look to Christ.' To-night the Lord Jesus himself is speak- 
ing to some of you, and his word is, * You have looked long 
to my servant for strength and comfort ; I have taken away 
my servant, now look unto me.' And some of you are not 
saved ! You have come and hung upon his lips, and have 
looked often to the preacher. The Lord says to you now, 

* Look unto me. In life and death, look unto me.' 

" Let me give you one of Mr. Spurgeon's own illustrations. 
He told how the Duke of Marlborough, when he was dying, 
was carried by some friends to see a picture of some great 
battle that he had fought. When he saw it he began to 
weep, and said, * Ah ! the Duke of Marlborough was some- 
thing then, but now he is a dying man,' upon which Mr. 
Spurgeon beautifully says that the Christian is something 
when he comes to die. It is then he is something. Why ! 
when we come to die we are only beginning to live ! He 
whom we mourn is yet alive. 

" Soon the day will come when we shall all look upon 
Christ, whether we have looked to him or not ; we shall see 
him as he sits on the great throne. The coming of the 
Lord draweth nigh. The second advent of Christ was, in 



to the Palm-Branch, 189 

his later years especially, a great hope to the departed 
Pastor of this Tabernacle. He looked for the coming of 
the Saviour, but I have heard him say many times that, if he 
might have his choice, he would rather experience the bliss 
of the spirits who are now with their Master, than escape 
death by being permitted to tarry till Christ should come. 
The Lord has given him his wish. He is yonder with the 
enraptured throng before the throne of God, while his body 
rests until the first resurrection. On the very night in which 
' our beloved Pastor entered heaven ' an unknown astrono- 
mer discovered a new star. On the Monday morning on 
which we read in the newspapers the terrible news which 
almost paralyzed us, an anonymous postcard arrived at 
Edinburgh Observatory saying there was a new star in the 
heavens, near the Milky Way, almost at the zenith, a star of 
the fifth magnitude. But in the heavens yonder there was 
another star that night, another star that shall shine for 
ever, not of the fifth, but of the first magnitude. The 
astronomers have been observing their star, and I think the 
angels have learnt something more of the grace of God from 
those lips through which we learned so much of it. He 
turned many to righteousness here ; there his theme will be 
still the same. 

" Ten nights ago, just about this hour, from the margin 
of the tideless blue sea, his happy spirit went up to stand 
on the sea of glass mingled with fire ! From the midst of 
the palm-trees, he went up to wave the palm-branch in the 
presence of the Throne. From amid the olive-trees, he, 
through faith in him who once poured out his soul under 
the olives, went up to rest beneath the Tree of Life, whose 
leaves are for the healing of the nations. From that sunny 
land, he went up to be in that other land where they have 
no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, 
for the glory of God does lighten it, the Lamb is the Light 
thereof. The last day of the month was the last day of 



igo From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 

his earthly course ; the first day of the week was the first 
day of his glory. 

" * After this, it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for- 
Truth was taken with a summons,' said John Bunyan, and 
his words are almost prophetic ; ' he had this for a token 
that the summons was true, that the pitcher was broken at 
the fountain. When he understood it, he called for his 
friends and told them of it. Then said he, * I am going 
to my Father's, and though with great difficulty I am got 
hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I 
have been at to get where I am. My sword I give to him 
who shall succeed me in my pilgrimage ; my courage and 
skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry 
with me, to be a witness for me, that I have fought his 
battles, who now will be my re warder.' When the day 
that he must go home was come, many accompanied him 
to the river side, into which, as he went, he said, ' Death, 
where is thy sting?' And as he went down deeper he 
said, * Grave, where is thy victory ? ' So he passed over — 
and all the trumpeters sounded for him on the other side." 

** Servant of God, well done! 
Rest from thy loved employ, 
The battle fought, the victory won, 
Enter thy Master's joy." 

This hymn, quoted in full on page 109, having been 
heartily sung, with special emphasis on the line, " The 
voice at midnight came ; " the meeting was concluded by 
prayer, after which many lingered behind to have a last look 
at the olive-casket. 



Jttii^iial ^4ii»i(j[. 



On Thursday morning, February nth, 1892, commencing 
at 1 1 o'clock, the funeral service was held in the Taber- 
nacle. Rev. A. T. PiERSON, D.D., presided. The centre 
of the area was filled with the mourners and delegates, the 
other places being occupied by seat-holders. 

Rev. William Williams, of Upton Chapel, announced 
the opening hymn : " Servant of God, well done," which, 
from its peculiar appropriateness, has been sung several 
times during the memorial services. 

Mr. Harrald then offered a most tender and compre- 
hensive prayer, in which, having given thanks for the rest 
and reward which had been given to " our beloved and Thy 
beloved", he very earnestly entreated, amid the fervent 
*amens " of the congregation, that consolation and strength 
might be given to the bereaved wife, the aged father, the 
beloved brother, the dear sons, the sorrowing sisters, and 
all other relatives of the glorified Pastor. For the youth- 
ful grandchildren he besought a blessing, asking especially 
for the infant grandsons that, as they were descended from 
a long line of preachers, they, too, might, by the grace of 
God, be called to the ministry of the Word. The stricken 
Church, College, and Orphanage shared in the intercession, 
which included a request that, through the memorial ser- 
vices, many might be turned to the Lord; and that, by 



192 From the Pulpit 

means of the printed sermons already published, and the 
others which shall yet be issued, a great multitude might be 
led to the feet of Christ. *'Amen and amen" was the 
response from every heart, and from many lips, as Mr. 
Harrald closed with a devout ascription of praise to the 
triune Jehovah — '*Unto the Father and the Son and the 
Spirit, the three-one God, be praises in the church above 
and the church below, thoughout all ages, by Christ Jesus. 
Amen." 

Rev. Archibald G. Brown, introduced by Dr. Pierson 
as " one of the early students of the College, one of the 
devoted Christian workers in this great city, and a personal 
friend of the pastor," in rising to read the Scriptures, said : 
" How cheerfully many of us would have died if, by our 
death, that life could have been spared, God knows. It is 
willed otherwise. He has gone, and the unworthy are left. 
Let us now read from the word of God a few passages which 
we have been led to select as appropriate. May the Spirit 
of God own his own truth ! 

*' ' 6^7 Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land 
of Moab^ according to the word of the Lord.^ 

" The Holy Ghost evidently counted that to be Jehovah's 
servant is a higher honour than to be king of Jeshurun. Moses 
died there where his God took him ; in his God's presence, 
in his God's arms, * according to the word of the Lord,' or, 
as it may be rendered, ' at the mouth of the Lord.' The 
Jews have a saying that Moses died with a kiss from God's 
mouth. 

" ^And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over 
against Beth-peor, but no man kfioweth of his sepulchre u?ito 
this day. And Moses was an hundred and twejity years old 
7vhen he died. His eye was fiot dim nor his natural force 
abated. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the 
plains of Moab thirty days ; so the days of weeping and 



to the Palm-Branck, 193 

mourning for Moses were ended. And Joshua the son of 
J^un was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his 
hands upon him ; and the children of Israel hearkened unto 
him and did as the Lord commanded Moses, And there arose 
not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord 
k7iewface to face.' 

** There is the high honour of this man of God ; there 
the secret of his power. It was in this that Moses stood 
unapproached and unrivalled. The Holy Ghost has 
declared that the grand distinction in his character was that 
he knew God intimately, and that God knew him face to face. 

*' ^Behold this day I am goi?ig the way of all the earth* 
Joshua said. ^Now, therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him 
in si?tcerity a?id truth ; and put away the gods which your 
fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in. Egypt ; 
and serve ye the Lord, And if it seem evil unto you to serve 
the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether 
the gods which your fathers served that were Oft the other side 
of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye 
dwell ; but as for me a?td 7?iy house we will serve the Lord, 
And the people answered and said, God forbid that ive should 
forsake the Lord,'' 

" If it were possible for our departed Joshua to speak, I 
believe the words would be these : ' Serve my God, and 
your God in all sincerity.' Oh, that there might break 
from this assembled company of mourners, the same 
response that followed the word of Joshua, when the 
people said, * God forbid that we should forsake the Lord ' I 
As he, our President and Pastor, followed God, so may we 
follow hard after. 

" ^Now E lis ha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he 
died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him and 
wept over his face.^ 

"It is well when royalty acknowledges the worth of a 
faithful prophet in the land. 

13 



194 From the Pulpit 

" ^And said, O my father^ my father ! the chariot of Israel^ 
and the horsemen thereof I And Elisha said unto him. Take 
born and arroivs: and he took unto him bow and arrows. 
And he said to the king of Israel^ Put thine hand upon the 
bow, and he put his hand upon it ; and Elisha put his hands 
upon the king^s hands. A7id he said. Open the window east- 
ward; aftd he ope?ied it. Then Elisha said^ Shoot; and he 
shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance.' 

"The ruling passion with this man of God was strong 
in death. 

" ^Afid Elisha died and they buried him. A?id the bands 
of the Moa bites ijivaded the land at the coming i?i of the year. 
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, 
they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the 
sepulchre of Elisha; and when the man was let down, and 
touched the bones of EHslia, he ixvived and stood up on his feet J 

"The influence of a prophet is not ended with his death. 
When good men die they yet speak, and life springs even 
from the sepulchre of the consecrated. 

" '■And they chose Stephen^ a man full of faith and of the 
Holy Ghost ^ and others, ^Aiid the ivord of God i?icreased ; 
and the number of the disciples nmltiplied in Jerusalem 
greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to 
the faith ^ But he died. ''And devout men carried Stephen 
to his burial, and made great lamentation over himl 

" Has the Book of God no word for those who are left ? 
It may be said that it is the survivor who dies. Our leader, 
Moses, has gone into his rest. Our warrior, Joshua, has 
ended his fight. Our propliet has shot his last arrow. 

*^^God is our refuge and strength, a very present help ifi 
trouble. Thei'efore will not we fear, though the earth be 
removed, and though the mountai7is be cari'ied i7ito the midst 
of the sea. Though the waters thereof ?'oar and be troubled, 
though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.^ 

" Our Pastor's word to us is, ' Let the worst come to the 



to the Palm-Branch. 195 

worst, the children of God should never give way to 
mistrust.' 

^^^ Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we 
not receive evil ? ' 

" */ was dumb: I opened not my mouth because thou didst it^ 

"A saintly silence. Sometimes it is impossible to say 
anything that can do good, and one would not, for all the 
world, say a word which could do harm ; we honour God 
best at these times by silence. Happy the experience 
which leads the soul to say, even looking at that coffin, 

" '// is the Lord: let him do what seemeih him good.^ 

** ^For we knoWf that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made 
with haftds, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, 
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is 
from heaven ; If so be that beifig clothed we shall not be found 
flaked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, beiftg 
burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed 
upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he 
that has wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also 
hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we 
are always confide7it, knowing that, whilst we are at home 
in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by 
faith, not by sight:) we are confident, I say, and willing 
rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the 
Lord. Wherefore we labour that, whether present or absent^ 
we may be well pleasing unto him.' 

" The brightest light that can be thrown upon a scene of 
sorrow, is the light which comes from the promised return 
of our Lord and Master. Let us read concerning his 
glorious advent. 

" * For if we believe that Jesus Christ died and rose again^ 
even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we 
which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall 



196 From the Pulpit 

not prevent^ or take precedence of * them which are asleep. 
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout y 
with the voice of the archangel^ a?td with the trump of God; 
and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are 
alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the 
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be 
with the Lord^ 

*' * Andjohn^s disciples came and took up the body and buried 
it, and went and told Jesus. ^ 

" That is all we can do." 

Rev. Robert Taylor, of Upper Norwood, announced 
the hymn, "which was the last our beloved friend gave 
out" We began to sing at the second verse — 

" The King above in beauty, 
Without a veil is seen ; 
It were a well-spent journey 
Though ten deaths lay between." 

Rev. A. T. PiERSON, D.D., then made the funeral address 
before the assembly, as follows : — 

The giant cedar of Lebanon has fallen, and the crash of 
the downfall shakes the whole land, and echoes round the 
world. No vacancy so vast has been left in the church for, 
at least, a hundred years. The roots that held this cedar 
to the soil have spread so far and wide, that the desolation 
is incalculable. For a hundred years no such event as the 
death of Charles Haddon Spurgeon has startled and bereaved 
the Christian church. 

I think it was loi years ago when John Wesley died ; in 
the year 1791. There is a very curious correspondence in 
the lives of the two brothers, John and Charles Wesley, and 
the lives of the two brothers, Charles and James Spurgeon ; 
and they lie apart in history by this century. In each case 
the two brothers wrought together as right hand and left hand 
work together in mechanic arts. And it is but due to the 



to the Palm-Branch. 197 

surviving brother to say, that the general public has not alto- 
gether appreciated, as yet, the contribution that he made, in a 
very unselfish spirit, to the usefulness and the wide- reaching 
work of his departed brother. Standing in the background, 
while his brother stood in the foreground, he was an in- 
spiration to his faith, an encouragement to his activity, and 
a constant co-operator in everything which he undertook. 
God bless him, and long may he survive to give his wisdom, 
his counsel, and his energy to the work which they jointly 
carried forward ! 

The posthumous work of John Wesley was greater than 
the work he did during his life ; as we look back over the 
century, we surround Mr. Wesley's name with much of the 
glory of the work carried on after his decease. The post- 
humous work of Charles Haddon Spurgeon no man can, 
at this day, estimate or conjecture. 

We must, moreover, remember that Mr. Wesley, who 
was born in 1 703, and converted in 1738, at the age of thirty- 
five, was privileged to live until the age of eighty-eight, dying 
in 1791 ; whereas Mr. Spurgeon, born in 1834, and con- 
verted at the age of sixteen, in the year 1850, has fallen 
asleep in Jesus before his fifty-eighth birthday had been 
reached. What that life would have wrought if thirty years 
more had been added to it, we can only imagine. And am 
I not, at least, justified in saying, especially in view of the 
comparatively brief term of this marvellous life, that there 
has been no life like it, in the church of God, in the century, 
and that, therefore, no vacancy so vast has been created by 
the withdrawal of any one of God's servants during that time ? 
Men, generally, concede to Mr. Spurgeon genius ifi the 
intellectual sphere ; but genius is a very vague and indefinite 
term. It usually stands for the creative faculty ; but what is 
the creative faculty but the combination of observation, 
accumulation, classification, and application ? In other 
words, is it not the using of all our powers, the gathering of 



198 From the Pulpit 

facts and truths, their orderly, methodical arrangement, and 
their practical utilization in matters of personal, social, and 
public life ? 

I trust that we shall not, being dazzled by his genius, 
forget that he set us a glorious example of the power of 
systematic activity. It was no mere genius that produced 
three thousand sermons in the course of these years, and 
gave to the world thirty-seven annual volumes of weekly 
discourses. It was no mere genius that sent twenty-seven 
volumes of The Sivord and the Trowel forth month by month. 
It was no mere genius that gave some one hundred volumes, 
larger and smaller, to the world, on all variety of topics con- 
nected with the gospel, the gospel ministry, and the Chris- 
tian life. The Treasury of David, which itself might have 
stood, with its seven volumes, as the one colossal work of 
one man's life, and which is the most popular and useful 
commentary ever written on a single book of the Bible, 
attaining already a sale of 125,000 volumes, a larger sale 
than has ever been known for any commentary on a single 
book, — this work cost, I understand, twenty years of labour 
in the leisure hours of a most laborious pastorate. All this 
meant hard, constant, and conscientious work. 

Some of us have wondered at the marvellous accumula- 
tions of Mr. Spurgeon's life-time. I trow that all this came 
not of any inherent endowment of genius. * If the iron be 
blunt,' says Solomon, in the tenth chapter of Ecclesiastes 
and the tenth verse, * If the iron be blunt and he do not whet 
the edge, then must he put to more strength,' — a profound 
proverb. ' A whet is no let,' says the old maxim. The time 
that the mower occupies in giving edge and keenness to his 
scythe, is no lost time in his work. One needs less strength 
if he has a sharp weapon. Mr. Spurgeon so sharpened his 
mental faculty by diligent culture, that, if he lacked anything 
in native strength, he certainly lacked nothing in the effi- 
ciency of the weapons and the implements that he used. 



to the Palm- Branch, 199 

We have all marvelled at the peculiar freshness, ful- 
ness, and forcefulness of the stream that he perpetually 
poured forth, in public utterances by pen as well as by tongue. 
If he himself should explain it, I am sure that he would tell 
us that the secret lay in two things. First, he kept filling up 
the cask ; and, in the second place, he tapped the barrel, not 
at the top, but at the bottom ; so that we always got from him a 
full and forceful stream. Nothing more surprised me in his 
intellectual life than the lavishness with which he bestowed it. 
He never seemed to fear self exhaustion ; he gave with the 
same lavishness to one poor soul from among the least and 
lowest, as to the throng of the greatest and noblest on the 
grandest occasion. The reason was, not simply that he was 
endowed with transcendent intellectual genius, but that 
he knew where the fountain of the best thought, and the 
noblest emotions and affections, was evermore to be found ; 
putting himself beneath that fountain, he was filled with the 
unsearchable riches of the Word of God, of the Spirit of God, 
and of the life of God. 

But though, perhaps, it is not quite so obvious, I believe 
that Mr. Spurgeon represented genius in the moral sphere^ 
which is even more rare than genius in the intellectual 
sphere. I mean by genius in the moral sphere, just what our 
blessed Lord said when the disciples were contending who 
should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Taking a 
little child, and placing him in their midst, he said, 'Who- 
soever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the 
same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.' Genius in the 
moral sphere, is the carrying forward of the characteristics of 
childhood into the period of manhood, and even of mature 
age. That is precisely what Charles Haddon Spurgeon did. 
He was always a little child in his own eyes and in his own 
spirit. In the last prayer I heard him offer, when I made 
a private visit to Beulah Hill, to see him once more before 
he left for Menton, he reminded me of young Zinzendorf, 



200 From tJie Pulpit 

when, at five years of age, he used to toss his love-letters out 
of the window directed to his ' Dear Jesus.' Yes, he was a 
little child. 

What is a child-like spirit ? Did you ever undertake to 
analyze it ? When we think of little children we think of 
three groups of graces. One group centres in truth^ and 
embraces simplicity and sincerity ; one group centres in love^ 
and embraces gentleness and generosity ; and one group 
centres in faith, and embraces confidence and compliance. 
Was he not in every one of those respects a man of a child- 
like spirit ? 

What rare simplicity ! sine plica, without a fold : opened 
up like the Bible on his coffin ; opened up so that all might 
read what was in his soul. What rare sincerity ! sine cerd, 
without wax: a possible reference to the Roman potters' 
habit of thrusting wax into the cavities of the vessel that 
they might conceal the flaws. Sincerity means that there 
is no attempt to conceal the flaws. The vessel can stand 
the searching and melting ray of the sunlight. 

What rare love was his ! what unspeakable gentleness ! 
such as we think of in a wife or a mother. He seemed to 
me to represent all the masculine virtues and most of the 
feminine virtues too. He was as brave and courageous 
and aggressive as the most heroic man, but he was as 
gentle and tender, as sympathetic and compassionate, as 
the most beautiful womanly character. What generosity 
he displayed! The unique story of that generosity never 
has been written, and it never will be fully written, for 
the data are unknown except to the omniscient God. It 
was a life perpetually imparting, and one reason it closed 
so early was because the giving out was more rapid than 
the taking in. Let us not deceive ourselves : he gave 
himself for humanity, and that is perhaps the reason why we 
have him not to-day. He lost his life in serving. 

How beautiful was his faith ! What simple and sublime 



to the Palm-Branch. 201 

confidence in his Lord ! unwavering, unaltering, unfaltering 
faith. I never saw such trust in any other human soul. It 
rebuked my own unbelief, and made my own scepticism 
seem a crime. More than anything else about him, it 
seemed to illustrate to me what a disciple could be who was 
in constant touch with God, and the circuit of whose 
invisible telegraphy with God never knew an interruption. 
Then what compliance, what obedience, there was with 
him ! I remember that, on one great occasion, when the 
most tempting offers of a popular character were put before 
him, his simple and sublime answer was, "Gentlemen, these 
things do not affect me. The only thing of any consequence 
to me in this world is to do the will of God." 

I want now to add a word about ge?iius in the spiritual 
sphere ; for there is such a thing, and he illustrated it. I 
mean, by genius in the spiritual sphere, what Paul speaks of 
in the sixth chapter of the ist Epistle to the Corinthians : 
*He that joined unto the Lord is one spirit.' That is 
genius in the spiritual sphere — the absolute onertess with God 
that comes from the merging of spiritual life, on the part of 
the believer, into the spiritual life of his Lord. I call the 
attention of my brethren here present, especially those in 
the ministry, to the fact that this is the last and grandest of 
all representations of the unity between a believer and 
Christ. That unity is illustrated from every department. 
It is illustrated from the material realm, in the building, the 
lively stones of which are built into one symmetrical struc- 
ture. It is illustrated from the vegetable realm, in the vine 
and the branches that interwrap their fibres. It is illustrated 
from the animal realm, in the sheep and the shepherd that 
are associated closely in flock and fold. It is illustrated 
from the human realm, in the body and its members which 
constitute one organism ; and in the bride and the bride- 
groom, which form the closest union known among men. 
It is also illustrated from the family, with one father, one 



202 From the Pulpit 

home, and one household ; and from the state, community, 
or commonwealth, under one supreme head or sovereign. 
But all these are defective, though they are given to us in 
their entireness and combination, so that what one lacks 
the other may make up. We turn, therefore, to this last 
and grandest of all : ' He that is joined unto the Lord is 
one spirit.' You may disintegrate a building. You may 
separate branches from the vine. You may part sheep and 
shepherd. You m^y take members off the body. A bride 
may be divorced from her bridegroom; a family may be 
broken into fragments j and a state may be shattered by 
rebellion. But the spirit is indivisible, and he that is joined 
unto the Lord forms with the Lord one indivisible and 
immortal spirit. That is genius in the spiritual sphere, and 
that was the genius of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. From 
that indivisible unity sprang his faith. From that indivisible 
unity sprang his zeal. From that indivisible unity sprang 
his obedience. From that indivisible unity sprang his 
adherence to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. From 
that indivisible unity came his sympathy with souls as such, 
so that the soul of the least and lowest was in his eyes as 
valuable as the soul of a king on the throne. 

My friends, the ugh there was much that was inimitable 
in this marvellous man, nevertheless there was much that 
he did and said, beUeved and lived, which challenges not 
only our admiration but our holy imitation. 

And now, as time forbids me to speak longer on this 
august occasion, I can only add that we have come together 
to bury the dead Glad we are that those precious remains 
were not left to rest among the palms and olives by the 
shores of the Mediterranean ; then only the noble and the 
affluent might have made their pilgrimage to his tomb. But 
we thank God that we are to lay these sacred ashes in our 
Norwood, where the common people who heard him gladly 
may wend their way to the place of his burial. You have 



to the Palm-Brauch, 203 

no occasion to build him a monument, for his monument, 
more enduring than brass, is in the hearts of millions of 
the human race. You have no need to employ a gardener to 
keep his grave green, for the tears of widows and of orphans 
will moisten the sod. You have no occasion to see that 
flowers are planted round his sepulchre, for there will be 
fragrant blooms from all parts of the earth, which will be 
brought by pilgrim hands in the remembrance of untold 
blessings that came through his lips and pen \ flowers that 
will be borne from all quarters to be set beside his place 
of rest. 

My brother, we shall never see another like unto thee. 
The eyes now closed in death, that twinkled like two stars 
in a dark firmament, and brought light and joy to many 
bereaved and saddened hearts, have lost their light for ever. 
The voice that spoke in tones so convincing and persuasive 
is hushed in death. The hand whose grasp uplifted many 
a fallen one, and gave new strength and encouragement to 
many a stricken one, will never again take our hands 
within its holy embrace. We bless God for thee, my brother. 
We are glad that heaven is made richer though we be 
made poorer ; and by this bier we solemnly pledge our- 
selves that we will undertake, by God's grace, to follow thy 
blessed footsteps, even as thou didst follow thy blessed 
Lord! 

Rev. Newman Hall, LL.B., at this point of the service, 
offered a most beautiful and touching prayer, in which 
adoration mingled with thanksgiving ; and intercession with 
grief. " We mourn that the gift has been withdrawn, because 
we bless thee that the gift was ever bestowed," was a sentence 
which drew forth the hearts of the congregation ; and a 
sobbing assent was given to this other, " We bless thee that 
his death is not premature, for thou knowest when thy 
servants are mature and fit for glory." 



204 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 

The people now joined in singing a verse of a hymn which 
was a great favourite with the departed Pastor : — 
" Knowing as I am known, 

How shall I love that word ; 
And oft repeat before the throne, 
For ever with the Lord 1 " 

Then the coffin was reverently carried by eight bearers to 
the hearse. As it slowly moved down the aisle, followed by 
the mourners, many of them choking down their sobs, a few 
of the boys from the Stockwell Orphanage sang the chorale. 
" Thou art gone to the grave, 
But we will not deplore thee, 
Though sorrows and darkness 

Encompass the tomb j 
The Saviour has passed 

Through its portal before thee, 
And the lamp of his love 
Is thy guide through the gloom. 
•* Thou art gone to the grave ; 
We no longer behold thee, 
Nor tread the rough path 

Of the world by thy side ; 
But the wide arms of mercy 
Are spread to enfold thee, 
And sinners may hope, 
Since the Sinless has died. 
" Thou art gone to the grave, 

But 'twere wrong to deplore thee. 
For God was thy ransom, 

Thy guardian and guide ; 
He gave thee, he took thee, 
And he will restore thee ; 
And death has no sting, 

Since the Saviour has died." 

Thousands of handkerchiefs were raised to tearful eyes, 
that took a last loving look at the beautiful casket that con- 
tained all that was mortal of him to whom all owed so much. 
Thus the dear body left the Tabernacle for the last time. 



4rom tltJ| ©ab^rnadii to th^ i^omi 



The open hearse which conveyed the oHve-casket to its 
resting-place at Norwood Cemetery, had, on both sides of 
it, the appropriate text which was also on the coffin, " I 
have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I 
have kept the faith." By this means, a sermon, five miles 
long, was preached as the procession slowly passed through 
the streets. On the coffin itself was placed Mr. Spurgeon's 
pulpit Bible, wide open, with a marker pointing to that 
precious passage which long ago brought salvation to the 
beloved man of God : " Look unto me, and be ye saved, 
all the ends of the earth : for I am God, and there is none 
else." As a warrior has his helmet and sword placed on 
his bier, the warrior of God had the Sword of the Spirit, 
which he so valiantly wielded for so many years, carried 
with his body to the grave. His death, as well as his life, 
was a continuous testimony for God. 

It is not necessary to chronicle the progress of the funeral 
procession along the roads crowded on either side with 
silent, awe-struck people, many of whom were in mourning 
and in tears ; nor to praise the arrangements and courtesy 
of the police force, though no praise, however high, would 
be more than they deserve. But we must notice that as the 
cortege moved along the route, the bells of St. Mary's, 
Newington, and St. Mark's, Kennington, were tolled, all 
the shops were shut, many of them draped, and some with 
portraits and mottoes upon them. The very public- houses 



2o6 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Braiich. 

were closed, and flags floated half-mast high. Thus the 
procession passed on, the hearse headed by mounted police, 
and immediately followed by the empty brougham of the 
departed preacher. After this came the carriage bearing his 
son, Pastor Charles Spurgeon, who ventured from a sick 
chamber to pay this last homage to his beloved father : Mrs. 
Charles Spurgeon accompanied him, and Pastor Archibald 
G. Brown rode in the same carriage. Pastor James A. 
Spurgeon shared his carriage with the Bishop of Rochester, 
who desired to pay the parting tribute to Mr. Spurgeon of 
being present at the grave. Other relatives were followed 
by Secretaries, Deacons, Elders, Representatives, Delegates, 
and Friends, and so the long line of vehicles passed on 
between the living throng. 

At the Stockwell Orphanage, a covered platform had been 
erected ; and, in deep mourning the children sat there, sup- 
posed to be singing, but most of them weeping, now doubly 
orphaned as they were ; for Mr. Spurgeon had taken them 
all to his heart, and a child's instinct for a true friend is 
seldom at fault. 

When the procession started from the Tabernacle, a meet- 
ing of ministers and students of the Pastors' College 
EvangeUcal Association began at Chatsworth Road Chapel, 
close to Norwood Cemetery. Those present at this service 
joined those who came in the procession, and a most striking 
sight it was to stand at the cemetery gate, and watch the 
long curving line of men reaching right up to the grave, all 
of them in black. 

The near relatives of the departed Pastor gathered first 
around the tomb, which was beautifully decked with foliage 
and flowers, then over a thousand mourners assembled 
within the barriers, and many thousands crowded beyond. 

While we stood there a little patch of blue sky appeared, 
just over our heads, as if to remind us of the glory-land 
above ; and while Mr. Brown was speaking, a dove flew from 



2o8 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch, 

the direction of the Tabernacle towards the tomb, and 
wheeling in its flight over the crowd, almost seemed to pause. 
In ancient days it would have been an augury : to us it spoke 
only peace. As the service proceeded, a Httle redbreast 
poured forth its liquid note all the while from a neighbouring 
tombstone; it was appropriate music, for the redbreist is 
fabled to have had its crimson coat ever since it picked 
a thorn from the Saviour's bleeding brow. Well, we do not 
believe that ; but we believe what we sang at the grave, the 
truth that the beloved Pastor lived to preach, and died to 
defend : — 

" Dear d)dng Lamb, Thy precious blood 

Shall never lose its power 
Till all the ransomed Church of God 

Be saved to sin no more. 

And we joined heartily in the confession and resolve. 

E'er since by faith I saw the stream 

Thy flowing wounds supply, 
Redeeming love has been my theme, 

And shall be till I die. 
Then in a nobler, sweeter song, 

I'll sing Thy power to save, 
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue 

Lies silent in the grave." 

"When the olive-wood coffin, with the open Bible still 
upon it, was lowered into the midst of the palms and lilies, 

Rev. Archibald G. Brown said : "It has pleased our 
heavenly Father, the sovereign Lord of life and death, to 
call away from this world the soul of our departed brother. 
We therefore commit his body to the grave — earth to earth, 
ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, surely expecting the coming 
of the day in which all that are in the grave shall hear the 
voice of the Son of God, and come forth." 

Nothing could have been more beautiful, nor more suitable, 
than Mr. Brown's closing words. They were delivered from 




14 



2IO From the Pulpit 

the heart : they will lodge in thousands more. With great 
pathos and many pauses, he said : — 

" Beloved President, Faithful Pastor, Prince of Preachers, 
Brother Beloved, Dear Spurgeon — we bid thee not ' Fare- 
well,' but only for a little while 'Good-night.' Thou shalt 
rise soon at the first dawn of the Resurrection -day of the 
redeemed. Yet is not the good-night ours to bid, but 
thine ; it is we who linger in the darkness ; thou art in God's 
holy light. Our night shall soon be passed, and with it all 
our weeping. Then, with thine, our songs shall greet the 
morning of a day that knows no cloud nor close ; for there 
is no night there. 

*' Hard-worker in the field ! thy toil is ended. Straight has 
been the furrow thou hast ploughed. No looking back has 
marred thy course. Harvests have followed thy patient 
sowing, and heaven is already rich with thine ingathered 
sheaves, and shall be still enriched through years yet lying 
in eternity. 

*' Champion of God ! thy battle, long and nobly fought, is 
over ; the sword which clave to thy hand, has dropped at 
last; a palm-branch takes its place. No longer does the 
helmet press thy brow, oft weary with its surging thoughts of 
battle ; a victor's wreath from the great Commander's hand 
has already proved thy full reward. 

" Here for a little while shall rest thy precious dust. Then 
shall thy Well-Beloved come ; and at his voice thou shalt 
spring from thy couch of earth, fashioned like unto his 
body, into glory. Then spirit, soul, and body, shall magnify 
thy Lord's redemption. Until then, beloved, sleep. We 
praise God for thee, and by the blood of the everlasting 
covenant, hope and expect to praise God with thee. Amen." 

Rev. A. T. PiERSON, D.D., led in solemn prayer, in which 
he besought that comfort in sorrow, and stimulus in service, 
might come to all those who were standing by the grave. 



to the Palm-Branch. 2 1 1 

The Bishop of Rochester (Dr. Randall Davidson), 
then pronounced the Benediction. 

Many remarked that the whole of the Memorial Services, 
unique as they were, were characterized by a simplicity and 
heartiness entirely in harmony with the whole life of the 
beloved Pastor \ and it was most significant that, when the 
olive-casket was lowered into the vault, not even the glorified 
preacher's name was visible — it was just as he would have 
wished it — there was nothing to be seen but the text at the 
foot of the coffin, and the open Bible. Of course, the Bible 
was not buried ; it is not dead, it " liveth and abideth for 
ever " ; and who knows whether it may not prove, more than 
ever, the means of quickening the dead, now that he, who 
loved it dearer than his life, can no longer proclaim its blessed 
truths with the living voice ? God grant it ! 



FOR CHILDREN. 



On the afternoon of Lord's-day, February 14th, 1892, 
the children of the various Sunday-schools connected with 
the Metropolitan Tabernacle ; the boys and girls of the 
Stock well Orphanage ; and the orphans from Mrs. Sharman's 
Homes, which are situated in the immediate neighbourhood, 
were gathered together, almost ten thousand of the little 
people being crowded into the building. 

Rev. V. J. Charlesworth, head-master of the Stockwell 

Orphanage, conducted a selected choir of the boys of the 
Institution, who sang, " Servant of God, well done ! ' ' and 
** The Homeland," being accompanied by Mr. F. G. Ladds, 
the secretary. 

Deacon William Olney, president of Haddon Hall, led 
in a brief and impressive prayer between these two hymns, 
the children repeating sentence by sentence after him. 

Deacon S. R. Pearce, superintendent of the Tabernacle 
Sunday-school, gave a short address, in which he contrasted 
previous gatherings of the children in the Tabernacle with 
the meeting now held under such sad circumstances. Point- 
ing to the mourning draperies which surrounded the platform, 



From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 213 

he said : — " Most of the young friends present know why 
these were placed here, and what they mean. This memorial 
service is one of a series, occasioned by the death of our 
beloved Pastor, C. H. Spurgeon. After forty years of faith- 
ful service, he has gone to be with Jesus. From this sacred 
spot, where I am now standing, the gospel has been preached 
in all its fulness and simplicity, so that the youngest amongst 
them might understand. 

" Mr. Spurgeon was once a little boy like some of you, 
and on one occasion, when he was engaged in making ' mud 
pies ' at his father's door, a visitor drew near, and asked his 
father who that little fellow was he had just seen outside. 
Yet that little boy grew up to be a great preacher, and 
the beloved of all our hearts. His lips were now silent, 
and his dear hands were cold in death ; but let us remember 
what he had said, and let us love the God whom he had 
loved, and serve the dear Saviour whom he had served so 
faithfully. 

*' If the Pastor could speak to us now, he would say, 
' Sorrow not for me : trust Jesus whom I have trusted, and 
be ready in season and out of season to serve him.' 

In conclusion, Mr. Pearce told the simple and touching 
story of an officer wounded in the fight, who, when a soldier 
came to comfort him, said, '* Never mind me, keep the flag 
flying." " So," he said, *' the beloved one would have us 
not to sorrow as those without hope, but he would desire us 
to keep the gospel flag flying, that others might become true 
soldiers of the cross, and more than conquerers, through 
him who loved us and gave himself for us." 

Mr. J. Manton Smith, whose cornet had a bow of crape 
upon it, after leading the children in the singing of two 
hymns, " There is a land of pure delight," and " Anywhere 
with Jesus," asked them to repeat his text word for word. 
With great gusto, the children thundered : — 



214 From the PtUpit 

** Samuel one — chapter three — verse nineteen : * The Lord 
was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the 
ground." 

He then said : — " Dear children, — On several occasions it 
has been my happy privilege to speak to united Sunday- 
schools from this platform. I have always found it to be 
an easy and delightful task. But to-day I have a somewhat 
more difficult duty to perform, for all our hearts have been 
made sad by the death of our beloved Pastor. He has gone 
from our midst, but his noble deeds and loving message will 
never die, for the Lord was with him, and he will not let his 
words fall to the ground. Some of you may remember that 
a little over a year ago, in a somewhat similar gathering to 
this, I told about a little shepherd boy in Scotland, named 
Jamie, who was very ill. His master loved him and was 
very kind to him, but felt sad because he did not know how 
to help him to die. So he asked a nobleman, who was a 
Christian, if he would go to the shepherd's cottage with him, 
and speak to the dying boy. The nobleman spoke to him 
about sheep and lambs in such a way, that Jamie became 
quite interested. Then he said, * I know a shepherd, Jamie, 
who has a great many sheep and a great many lambs. He 
knows them all and loves them dearly, and he laid down his 
Ufe for his sheep. Jamie, I am one of his sheep, and he 
wants you to be one of his lambs. If you will, from your 
heait, say to him, * Lord Jesus, I will accept thee as my 
Saviour just now,' then you will be able to say truly, with 
me, * The Lord is my Shepherd.' 

" Jamie said, * I should like to say that.' 

" * Well, Jamie,' said the nobleman, * I will tell you how 
you can remember it ; repeat it, after me, on your knuckles. 
There are five words, and you have five knuckles. So with 
a finger on one knuckle after the other, they said several 
times, ' The Lord is my Shepherd.' 

*• The next day, when the nobleman called at the 



to the Palm- Branch. 215 

shepherd's cottage to see Jamie, Jamie's mother was 
weeping bitterly. 

" He said to her, * How is Jamie this morning ? ' 

** She sobbed out of her broken heart, ' Jamie's gone. 
Jamie's gone.' 

'' ' Well,' said the nobleman, * And how did he die ? ' 

" * He died with his finger on the fourth knuckle,' said 
the mother. 

" What word does that stand for, children ? " asked Mr. 
Smith, and the children all shouted, " MY, sir." 

" At our last gathering, when I told this story, ihere was 
a little fellow three years old here, named Stanley Smith, 
who sometimes calls me father. He evidently remembered 
it, for last Monday week, when his mother told him that 
dear Mr. Spurgeon was dead, little Stanley looked up, and 
said — 

" * Is he ? Which finger did he die on ? ' 

** And when I arrived home from Dover, he met me in 
the hall, and said — 

" * Father, Mr.. Spurgeon has died, and gone to heaven on 
the fourth knuckle.' I took the little fellow up jyid kissed 
him. ' God bless you, my child,' I said, what Jesus said 
is true, 'Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast 
perfected praise.' 

" Our beloved Mr. Spurgeon was the shepherd of the 
sheep who worship in this Tabernacle, he was also himself 
a sheep of the Shepherd who is in heaven ; and now he has 
gone to the great Shepherd's fold. 

" When Mr. Spurgeon was a litde boy, a gentleman, visit- 
ing his grandfather, took him on his knee and gave him a 
new sixpence, and said, * Charley, my boy, when you become 
a preacher remember this sixpence, and let the first hymn 
you give out be — 

" God moves in a mysterious way, 
His wonders to perform." 



2i6 From tJie Pulpit 

"And Mr. Spurgeon did so. During the last week we 
have been learning the truth of this hymn, but we know 
God always does right. 

*"What the people said about John the Baptist can be 
truly said about our dear departed Pastor. ' Spurgeon did 
no miracles, but all things that Spurgeon spake of Jesus 
were true.' Like the child Samuel, who is referred to in our 
text, he began early in life to serve the Lord." 

Mr. Smith here told, in his own graphic way, the story 
of Samuel and Eli, and then showed the children how Mr. 
Spurgeon, like Samuel, early heard God's voice, and answered 
to his call. 

*' Those who hear the call of God," he continued, *' and 
obey it, are safe, trustful, useful, and happy. Would you 
not all wish to be like that ? What is it to be safe ? When 
Mr. Spurgeon was a little boy, he used to live with his 
grandfather. On his grandfather's shelf there stood a large 
bottle with a small neck, and inside this bottle there was a 
large apple. This was a standing puzzle to Mr. Spurgeon 
when he was a little boy. 

" ' How did the apple get inside the bottle,' he asked his 
grandfather. 

" The reply he received was, ' Find out.' 

" He then asked his grandmother, who gave him the same 
kind of answer. He examined the bottle to see if there were 
any joins and marks where it had been put together, but 
could not see any, and so he asked his grandfather again. 

*' His grandfather still said, ' Find out.' 

*' When quite alone, he put on his grandmother's spectacles, 
and looked carefully into the bottle to see if the apple had 
been put in in sections, but no, it was quite whole. 

" One day he walked down his grandfather's garden, and 
saw a bottle tied on to one of the branches of an apple tree, 
and a little tiny apple growing at the end of the branch in- 
side the bottle. He had now discovered the secret, and 



to the Palm-Branch, 217 

ran into the house, saying, ' Now I know how that big apple 
got into that bottle on the shelf: it grew inside.' The cold 
frost might come, and nip some of the other apples, but this 
one was safe, because it was inside the bottle. Now the 
Sunday-school and the Church are like this bottle : they 
shield many who enter it while they are young from a cruel, 
cold world, and many blasts of temptation." 

Several other interesting illustrations followed, showing 
what it was to be trustful and useful, the children paying 
eager attention. To make the last point clear, the speaker 
said : — " Some years ago I visited a little boy, at the point 
of death, in Scotland. Seeing how weak he was, I told him 
I would not weary him with a long talk, so sang to him a 
verse which ran as follows ; — 

" Oh ! you must be a lover of the Lord, 
Or you can't go to heaven when you die.** 

He looked at me smiling, and said — 

" ' I like that, I should like to sing it myself." 

** It pleased him much, and he said — 

" ' 1 should like Mr. Fullerton to hear me sing that.' As 
he was in the next room, I called him in, and we both 
listened to his feeble effort to sing the verse, which, in his 
pretty Scotch accent, sounded very sweet. The next morn- 
ing I called to see him before leaving for London, and he 
said — 

" * I have learnt another verse.* 

*' * What is it ? ' I said ; and he at once began to sing — 

'* Yes ! I am a lover of the Lord, 
So I shall go to heaven when I die." 

Then he looked up into my face, and said — 

" * Shall I go to heaven ? ' 

** ' Yes, indeed,' I said, * you will if you are a lover of the 
Lord.' 



2i8 From the Pu/pit to the Pabn-Bi-anch. 

" 'Ah, sir!' he said, *I do love him, and I know he loves 



Rev. A. T. PiERSON, D.D., led the children in prayer, 
which, as at the beginning, they repeated clause by clause \ 
and after singing — 

" Oh ! that will be joyful, 
When we meet to part no more," 

the large company of little people dispersecL 



^n ^mm^U of ^&,\mj^. 



A SERMON' DELIVERED BY 
REV. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D., 

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, 

On LortTs-day Morning, February x^ih, 1892. 

"David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, 
fell on sleep." — Acts xiii. 36. 

" After he had served his own generation by the will of 
God ! " One of the most beautiful things about the Word 
of God is the brevity of its biographies — the short sentences 
in which, by the Holy Ghost, the entire story of a con- 
secrated and useful life is often told. In this thirteenth 
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we have two verses 
which give God's estimate of David. One is the twenty- 
second verse : " I have found David the son of Jesse, a man 
after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will." And 
the other is the thirty-sixth verse : " David, after he had 
served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep." 
Now let us be as brief and as pointed as possible. Take 
these three thoughts that are suggested at a moment's 
glance : — service, service to one's own generation, service to 
one's own generation by the will of God. In other words, the 
thought of service first ; the sphere of service second — one's 
own generation ; the spirit of service third — " by the will 
of God." 

First, as to service itself, we are accustomed to say that the 
Christian life in its completeness, consists : first, of salvation j 



220 From the Pulpit 

second, of sanctification; and third, of service. But this is 
narrowing down the conception of salvation to very small 
limits. Salvation is not simply deliverance from the 
penalty of sin, which is justification; but from the power 
of sin which is sanctification, and from the dominion of 
selfishness; and what is that but service? When you 
forget yourself and begin to live for others, that is serving 
God and serving man. And surely no salvation is complete 
that does not include service as well as sanctification ; and 
to show you that the saints of all ages have felt this, notice 
the last verse that we sung — 

" Take, my soul, thy full salvation ; 
Rise o'er sin, and fear, and care ; ** 

what is that but sanctification? 

** Joy to find in every station, 

Something still to do or bear.** 

That is service. So that there is no " full salvation " which 
does not include deliverance from the power of sin, and 
deliverance from the sway of all selfishness that confines our 
thought and our endeavour to our person, to ourselves. 

We look quite too far for the sphere of our service. It is in 
our own generation, and not only so, it is in the very place 
where God has already put us that we are to find the sphere 
of our service. We look too far off. Doing the next duty, 
according to the will of God, is serving God — taking up the 
burdens of life and bearing them in the fear of God, and in 
the spirit of contentment, and for the glory of God : that is 
service. It is service in the house-maid to sweep the corners 
that she has neglected, to wash the pots and kettles and not 
fret about it. It is service in the carpenter to do good work, 
and furnish good material ; it is service in the mason to build 
the wall, and put his piety and his conscience into brick and 
mortar. It is service in any man or woman or child to do 
the very next thing, and do it as one that loves God and 
wants to please him. There was a little girl in America who 



to the Palm-Bi-anch. 221 

at the age of eight years found Jesus Christ. She lived in 
a district where, as yet, there was no church ; it was a little 
hamlet in the West ; she had a drunken, blasphemous, 
profligate father, and she began to ask God to bless her 
father. One Sunday morning she took her father's hand 
with caressing tenderness, and said, "Father, would you go 
to Sunday-school with me to-day ? " Her father could not 
resist the omnipotence of that Httle hand, and he said, *'0h, 
yes, yes, I will go with you." He went, and he found Jesus 
Christ that afternoon. Not long since he died, having him- 
self established i,i8o Sunday-schools in destitute districts. 
How little did that child understand what significance hung 
on her simply doing the next thing that was before her — the 
simplest thing that she could do, and the most natural thing 
that she could do ! She never thought of doing a great 
thing. Is it not true that most servants of God that accom- 
plish great things have not meditated great things to begin 
with ? The Lord had a great plan, but his servant knew very 
little of it, and he simply began to do the next thing that 
was at his hand ; and the Lord expanded his sphere and 
greatened his soul, and increased his faith, and crowned him 
with abundant success. 

It is a blessed lesson to learn that I can stay right where I 
am, not change my sphere at all, but only change the spirit 
in which I do God's work, and ask my blessed Saviour to 
become a partner with me in my daily toils, and sweeten my 
cup, and use my life, and so make it a blessing to my soul 
and other souls. I am tempted to tell this great congrega- 
tion an incident that happened in my own pastoral life; 
though it is scarcely of so dignified a character as to justify 
appearing in print, it is a most helpful story. I preached 
one Sunday morning on the text, " Let every man, in that 
calling wherein he is found, therein abide with God." There 
was a woman in my church who, having a husband, but 
no family, used to do all her own work ; and there was a part 



222 From the Pulpit 

of that work over which she used every day to fret, and that 
was washing the dinner dishes after the dinner was done. 
She went home that Sunday noon, and after dinner was over 
she came to the usual drudgery of washing the smudged pots 
and kettles. " Oh ! " she said to hersdf, " it is the same old 
drudgery ! " Then she thought of the text of my sermon, 
" Let every man abide in that calhng wherein he is found," 
and " therein abide with God ' '; and she just stood there 
right at the kitchen table, lifted up her heart and said, "Jesus, 
come into this kitchen with me, and help me to wash these 
pots and kettles, that I may never again fret at any lot that 
God gives me." And she told me before I left America, that 
from that day she had never known what it was to fret at her 
kitchen work. That woman grew so much in grace, in know- 
ledge of God, and in knowledge of the Holy Scripture, that 
she is to-day the head of the women's missionary society in 
a State of millions of people. Who can tell what a 
blessing might come to the men and w^omen of this congre 
gation, if, coming out of this house of God this morning, 
they should say to Jesus, " Come with me into my poor 
daily drudgery, and sanctify it ; and help me never again to 
fret or worry at my lot." What a peace of God might come 
into your souls, and what a confidence in God into your 
daily toil ! How Christ might sweeten even your bitter cup 
for you ! 

And I desire to add, moreover, that service can only be 
done when we are living a life of faith. There is a notion 
in some peoples' minds that, when Jesus Christ said to his 
disciples in Matthew vi. 33, " Seek ye first the kingdom of 
God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be 
added unto you,'' it was meant only for apostolic days. Be 
lieve me, we should cut about nine-tenths of the sweetest 
promises out of the AVord of God if we treat them in that 
fashion. There is just as much occasion to live a life of 
faith to-day as there was in the days of the apostles ; and 



to tJie Palm-Branch, 223 

that promise is just as much for you and for me as it was 
for them. And what does it mean ? Take as the first 
object of your life, the extension of the kingdom of God, 
and the incorporation into your own life of his righteous- 
ness, and he will give you everything that he sees to be 
necessary for you. That is the promise ! The fact is, we 
need a single eye and a single aim. No man can see 
double and see correctly and safely. And God wants his 
children to be single-eyed in his service, to aim at the 
extension of his kingdom, to aim at the development of 
righteousness in the human character, to keep the eye on 
the glory of God. You cannot serve God and Mammon ; 
you cannot be careful and troubled about many things, and 
yet have your central and concentrated affection fixed on 
the one thing needful. And so our blessed Lord bids 
you no more to worry even about your daily support ; and 
he says, if you will first of all live for him, he will see that, 
as no sparrow falls to the ground without his notice, and 
even the hairs of your head are numbered, you shall have 
just what is necessary for you. That is a great promise, is 
it not ? 

I hold that worry is calculated, not only to hinder the 
work of God, but absolutely to encourage sin in our hearts ; 
and that worry is therefore not only needless, since we have 
the promise, but it is sinful — sinful. If you are doing God's 
work, what are you worrying about ? Is not God able to 
take care of his own work ? And are you so impertinent as 
to suppose that he cannot get along without your sohcitude 
and anxiety concerning his work ? And if it is something 
that demands worry, then it is not God's work but yours. 
That is very short logic, but, to my mind, very conclusive. 
If you are doing God's work, leave responsible issues with 
him ; if you are doing work that is not God's work, get out 
of it just as soon as possible, and take your proper stand at 
the side of God, and let all you do be service for him. 



224 From the Pulpit 

There are some secrets of service that I must touch 
upon ; and may I not first of all mention obedience ? I 
am satisfied that very few people understand what obedience 
is — absolute obedience to God. To hear his Word and 
follow it ; to hear the suggestions of his Spirit by the " still, 
small voice," and at once yield compliance ; to mind instantly 
what conscience enjoins, and never to continue in a course 
when you are even doubtful with regard to its propriety — 
that is absolute obedience. And it would not be possible 
to express, in any fitting language, what God could do with 
his Church if there were absolute obedience even in one 
half of the members of Protestant communions. In the 
277th Hegira, as it is called, there was a rebel sect known 
as Carmathians, led by Abu Said and Abu Taher. They 
were able to command in the field only about five hundred 
horse at the time I am speaking of. but they swept down 
the coasts of Persia, and approached the city of Bagdad, the 
capital. The caliph trembled before their onset, for there 
was a blind vow of absolute submission to their leader, on 
the part of these soldiers. As these five hundred horsemen 
approached the city, the caliph sent out his soldiers and 
burned the bridges, so that they could not retreat. Then 
he sent his own lieutenant to say to Abu Taher, who was 
leading this body of cavalry, " If you do not surrender, 
all of your company will be destroyed." Abu Taher said 
to the lieutenant, " Your master has thirty thousand soldiers 
at his command, but he has not three that are as loyal to 
him as all these five hundred horsemen of mine are to me.' 
He beckoned to one. Said he, " Plunge the dagger into 
your breast," and he instantly drove the dagger into his 
heart. He said to another, " Leap from that precipice," 
and immediately he sprang from the precipice and was dashed 
in pieces. He said to another, "Fling yourself into the 
waters of the Tigris," and, without murmur or hesitation, 
he threw himself into the waters and was drowned. " Now," 



to the Palm- Branch. 225 

said he, " you may go and tell the caliph that I have five 
hundred horsemen mounted, anyone of whom will do just 
what these men have done at my command, and tell him 
that before night I will have his generals chained with 
my dogs." And before night the generals of the caliph 
were thus chained with those dogs. Five hundred horsemen 
overcoming thirty thousand soldiers! How? By absolute 
obedience to their leader. If God had in his church to-day 
one-tenth of its membership that were absolutely surrendered 
to his will, never hesitating, never murmuring, content to 
follow where he leads, and do exactly what he commands— 
with that one tenth of his followers Jesus Christ could 
conquer this whole world to himself. 

Let each one of you, as a child of God, ask yourself, 
" Am I serving God ? Am I serving him ? and if not, 
how may I serve him ? " Look at the Greek word 
here : it is a word that means to be an under-rower. 
You know that the ancient war galleys had banks of oars 
arranged along the sides of the vessel in tiers, one, two, 
three, four, and sometimes five. At each one of these 
openings in the vessel's side, an oarsman presided at his oar, 
sometimes so limited in his range of vision that he could not 
even see the oarsman that sat in front of him on account of 
the partitions between. The oarsmen were all regulated 
by one superior will — the voice and beck of the pilot, 
and the word used here is the very word applied to an 
under-rower. " David, after he had under-rowed in his own 
generation." He just took his place at the oars that God 
gave him, and he pulled away at those oars, and the vessel 
was propelled forward under the will of the pilot. That is 
all you have to do, just take your place where God puts 
you, and do the work he gives you. Never envy your com- 
panions in labour, their spheres, their activities, their services; 
but look at your own sphere, activity, and service ; and yield 
absolutely to the will and command of the divine pilot. 

IS 



2^6 From the Pulpit 

Let this great church consider what could be done if 
all the disciples in this membership were to work and live in 
the spirit of service Here are, at least, five thousand 
members in active communion. Suppose that every one of 
these five thousand members should resolve, by the grace of 
God, to take one soul until the ist of January next as the 
object of prayer and devout labour, seeking to lead, at least, 
one soul to Christ during the coming ten months; there 
would be five thousand converts as the reward of that work, 
for can you doubt for a moment that God would bless such 
a consecrated effort as that ? There would be double the 
membership of this church within one year if each soul here 
led one other soul to Jesus Christ. I was yesterday 
making some slight computation as to what could be 
done if there were consecrated giving here, even in small 
sums. Suppose each member of this church, for example, 
should steadfastly set apart a single penny a day as an 
average ; in one year we should have the princely sum of 
;^7,6oo, or more than twice as much as was necessary to 
pay all the running expenses of this great church during the 
last twelve months, irrespective of benevolent institutions. 
But since the ability to give is unequal in this great 
congregation, suppose there should be two thousand five 
hundred persons who would give a penny a day ; one thou- 
sand five hundred, twopence ; five hundred, threepence ; two 
hundred and fifty, sixpence ; one hundred and fifty, a shilling; 
and one hundred who would give two shillings a day (which 
is only about jQi^ a year), it would amount to ;^i 9,000 at 
the close of the year. Some people talk about these great 
institutions connected with the Tabernacle going down into 
decline because the head Pastor has been withdrawn. I 
hold that it would be the greatest reproach, not only to the 
name of the Pastor, but to the Lord Jesus Christ and to this 
church itself, if any paralysis should come upon one of the 
institutions connected with this great congregation. This 



to the Palm-Branch, 227 

large Christian membership, by a small average of daily 
consecrated giving, could support not only this church, but 
all its institutions, and, instead of declining, every form of 
work for Christ would go forward. 

Then consider what people can do in serving God by 
simply praying. If you. are bed-ridden, if you are too poor 
to give a penny a day, if you cannot go to a single public 
service, is there anything that shall hinder you from praying 
to Almighty God for every interest connected with his 
kingdom and the progress of his cause here ? 

We turn for a moment to reflect on the second and 
third clauses, upon which I will be brief. " David served 
his own generation by the will of God ; " that is, he found 
the sphere of his service in the generation in which he lived. 
Our benevolence is sometimes too far sighted, it overlooks 
immediate wants for more remote wants. I cannot myself 
understand how any man to whom God has given large 
means, can accumulate those means with reference to their 
distribution by legacy. It seems to me a great instance of 
folly, to say nothing more, that a man should risk the final 
appropriation of great gifts which God has entrusted to him 
in the way of accumulations of money — that he should risk 
their finally reaching their destination by leaving those gifts 
to be distributed by will. I have known in America, a 
princely fortune of two millions sterling absolutely wasted 
in legal processes in the court, devoured by those vultures, 
called lawyers, instead of being distributed through the 
channels for which it was designed. A man who gives 
while he lives has the satisfaction of seeing his gifts 
reach their destination ; and has the satisfaction of seeing 
that the work of God is advancing under his benefactions. 
We talk about " generous legacies," and " munificent 
bequests." I do not see how there can be such a thing as a 
generous legacy or a munificent bequest. How can a man 
be generous when he has no longer any other opportunity of 



228 From the Pulpit 

using the money for himself? What munificence can there 
be on the part of a man whose dying hand .relaxes its grasp 
on every earthly possession, and out of which even the 
gold he had accumulated and coveted drops? There 
may be munificent gifts to God and glorious benefactions 
while a man lives, but it is very doubtful to me whether 
we ought to call any legacy or bequest generous or 
munificent. What a blessed thing for a man while he 
lives so to bestow his goods as that widows and orphans 
are made glad, as that the greatest institutions are per- 
manently founded on a firm basis, as that the gospel is 
spread abroad in all parts of the earth ! William E. Dodge, 
in New York, was so beneficent a giver that when he died 
no less than two hundred and fifty institutions in America, 
Europe, Asia, and Africa owed either their existence, or their 
extension, to what he had done on their behalf " David 
served his own generation." He served his own generation 
when he was feeding his flocks, when he learned to use the 
sling that hurled the stone that smote Goliath in the fore- 
head, when he learned to play the harp and prepared himself 
to become the great psalmist and psalmodist of Israel. He 
served his own generation when he carried on the wars of 
the Lord, and made preparation for building the temple of 
the Lord ; and there is no reason to believe that he did not 
serve God as much in the faithful care of his flocks as 
when he was gathering together gold, silver, and precious 
stones for the erection of the stately temple of ancient times. 
We need only to see that all is according to the will of God. 
If it is not in obedience to the voice of your Divine Pilot 
that you take your place at the oars and do your work, if 
the plan of your life is not embraced in the plan of God, if 
your heart does not by its love and its loyalty take God's 
pleasure as your pleasure, how can there be any real service 
unto God or unto humanity ? 

I leave all this to say one word in application on the 



to tJie Palm-Branch. 229 

life of the beloved departed Pastor of this church. Let 
me instance one example of his service to his own 
generation by the will of God. I will not say a word 
about the Orphanage, or the Pastors' College, or the Alms- 
houses, but will simply speak of him as a preacher of the 
gospel — a simple, earnest, gospel preacher. I was making a 
computation, and I found that he must have preached the 
gospel, during the time of his public ministry, to no less than 
ten millions of people ; that during his pastorate he must 
have received into communion between ten and twelve thou- 
sand converts ; that his sermons must have reached a total of 
between twenty and forty millions of readers during the last 
thirty years ; and that, probably, to-day there are over fifty 
millions of people that are reading the account of his life, and 
his labours, and his decease and burial. Here then was one 
man gathering into the Church of God, through his ministry, 
not less than twelve thousands converts, preaching the 
gospel to not less than ten millions of people with the 
living voice, and reaching from twenty to forty millions 
of people with his printed sermons during thirty years 1 
Then all of you must know how those sermons have gone 
round the world, translated into twenty languages and 
dialects, at least, of which we know — Danish, Swedish, 
Russian, Dutch, German, French, Swiss, Spanish, Portuguese, 
Italian, Hindustani, Chinese, Japanese, Syriac, Arabic, Gaelic, 
the languages of Africa and of the South Sea Islands ; on the 
continent of Asia ; on the continent of Europe ; going into 
South America, North America, Canada ; penetrating into 
every part of the earth, so that it is impossible for us to 
form a correct and exact estimate to-day, of the marvellous 
influence of that one voice and that one pen. And I have 
made no reference whatever to the multitude of works, 
aside from sermons and volumes of sermons, that he 
produced by his laborious pen. The testimony has been 
given throughout this memorial service, and given by men 



230 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 

of all denominations from all quarters, that he was the 
princely preacher of this century, and that no doubt his 
messages of the gospel had more rapidly and more distantly 
permeated the world than those of any other man, living 
or dead, in the century. 

Would it not be a privilege to serve the same God that 
Charles H. Spurgeon served? Are there none of you 
this morning that will look unto Jesus and be saved as he 
was, and find the secret of pardon and acceptance in those 
blessed words, "He hath made us accepted in the beloved "? 
What a marvellous change will take place in your life this 
morning, if, as you go out of this house, you should say to 
God, " Henceforth thy will shall be the guiding star of my 
whole existence ; I will undertake to serve God with holy 
living, to serve God with holy giving, to serve God with 
devout praying, to serve God by instant and constant 
obedience, to serve God by taking my place wherever God 
puts me, doing whatever work he gives me to do, and with 
all my heart seeking to glorify my Master." Then, my be- 
loved friends, it may be your joy and mine, by-and-by, to 
stand where he stands in the presence of the Lord of Glory, 
and receive from our Master, the divine words of com- 
mendation that have already fallen upon his ears, "Well 
done, good and faithful servant." 



f ememkr pwx %mi\tt 



A SERMON DELIVERED BY 
REV. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D., 

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, 

On Lorcfs-day Evening, February i^th, 1892. 

"Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken 
unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end 
their conversation." — Hebrev^^s xiii. 7. 

Along this upper railing you may all read that significant 
motto : '* Remember the word that I said unto you ; being 
yet present with you ; " and to amplify the meaning of that 
motto will be my special object now. 

Those who were present at the Memorial Service for the 
church members, will recall how Dr. Angus made this text 
the staple of his remarks, venturing to give a new rendering 
of it, which is rather more literal . " Bear in mind your 
leaders, since they have spoken unto you the Word of 
God; observing the end of their life-course, imitate their 
faith." 

Spiritual leaders are of the highest importance to the 
human race. Few of us are capable of leadership, and so we 
need to have leaders to follow ; and in all ages of the world 
God has given to men leaders — leaders in education, 
leaders in politics, leaders in philanthropy, and leaders in 
great religious movements ; and inasmuch as the well-being 
of souls is of supreme importance, leadership in spiritual 
things is a supreme want and need of the human family. 



232 From the Pulpit 

It is of great importance that we should recognize such 
leaders, when God gives them to us. If it be needful that 
we should have leaders, it is equally so that we should not 
be misled by false guides, and therefore it is of such high 
importance that we should be able to determine what are 
the marks of a true, God-sent teacher. This text, whatever 
may be its other value, is mainly of importance, because it 
indicates three tests of a genuine, God-sent leader. In the 
first place he speaks the word of God, in the second place 
his faith is fixed on a personal Saviour ; and, in the third 
place, his life conforms to the Word of God and to the faith 
in Christ, and ends in a glorious immortality. Wherever we 
find those three indications meeting in any man or woman, 
we may recognize the heaven-sent leader, and it is at our 
peril if we do not follow such leadership. There may, 
apparently, be one of these signs without the other two, or 
there may even appear to be two of those signs without the 
other, and third. In such cases doubt is justified : but, when 
the three are united, there can be no more reasonable 
question that such a man is one of God's anointed kings. 

As there are three indications of God's heaven-sent 
leaders here noted, so there are three corresponding duties 
that pertain to the common mass of mankind. The first is 
that we should bear in mind the heaven-sent leader for the 
sake of his message. The second is that we should watch 
and observe his heavenly course of life, and especially its 
glorious end ; and the third is that we should copy or imitate 
his faith in a personal Christ ; and I am sure you will agree 
with me, that no text could be more appropriate to the 
closing portion of these memorial services, that have 
extended through a fortnight, than this text. Bear in mind 
your great departed leader, because he spoke to you faith- 
fully the Word of God ; look back over the course of his life, 
and especially mark its glorious end ; and from henceforth 
become imitators of his personal faith in a personal Saviour. 



to the Palm-Branch. 233 

Let us, then, for a few moments, reflect upon these signs 
of a heaven-sent leader, and then apply them to the beloved 
and departed Pastor. 

In the first place, a heaven-sent leader speaks the 
Word of God. God has communicated his messages to 
men ; and I believe, personally, that in a grand sense the 
prophetic office always has been in the world, and always 
will be in the world, till the end of time. What is a prophet ? 
A prophet is not necessarily one who predicts future events. 
Prediction was but one mark of a prophet, and did not 
mark all prophets, either. A prophet is one who stands 
before men, to speak in behalf of God. Most of the Old 
Testament prophets predicted, because it was pleasing to 
God that those who spoke in his name should indicate to 
men the great events of the future, and especially the 
coming events that had to do with the Messiah ; but, as 
was said before, it is no necessary mark of the prophetic 
office or person, that he predicts future events. 

The difference between the Old Testament prophets and 
New Testament prophets lies mainly in this : Old Testa- 
ment prophets spoke in behalf of God when, as yet, there 
were no written Scriptures, or when those written Scriptures 
were being gradually accumulated to make the complete 
book. Therefore, it was essential that prophets should be 
guarded by divine inspiration from any false or even fallible 
utterances. It was needful that there should be a compact 
body of revelation known as the Word of God, and they 
were chosen as the vehicles for creating or producing this 
Word of God, and therefore the great requisite was infallible 
inspiration. The character of the man speaking was of no 
particular consequence, in comparison to the character of 
his message. And so it pleased God sometimes to speak 
through men that were not what they ought to be, as in the 
case of Balaam and as in the case of Saul, because He thus 
magnified the office and function* of the prophet above the 



234 From the Pulpit 

person or character of the man. The message of God was 
the main thing, and if God chose to give that message 
through lips that were estranged from Him by wicked 
works, He might follow His own pleasure. But in these 
New Testament times the Word of God has been given, and 
given in final completeness. Hence there is no longer a 
necessity that any should help to produce the written Word 
of God. We have that in its entirety, its inspiration, its 
infallibility, and now, what we need prophets for is to 
interpret the word that God has given and apply it to human 
heaits. Hence arises a necessity that the character and 
life of the man who is to interpret the Scriptures shall be in 
accordance with the Scriptures. I think that we may safely 
say that, in modern times, God never chooses an uncon- 
verted or an unholy man to be the true vehicle of His 
message to his fellow-men. Character is of prime importance, 
as we shall see before we get through with this investigation ; 
but what I would just now impress upon your minds is that 
a prophet is essentially a divine teacher and that, although 
the gift of predicting future events may no longer be a part 
of the qualification of a prophet, the prophetic office 
continues in the Church of God. Every man who preaches, 
and teaches, and testifies the Gospel of the grace of God, in 
accordance wuth the conditions here laid down, backing his 
gospel message by his personal faith in a personal Christ, 
and living such a life of godhness as shows that the message 
has taken root in his own heart — such a man is one of 
God's prophets, one of God's anointed ones, and it is at 
the peril of men that they do not receive the testimony of 
his lips and of his life. That I take to be the solemn 
sentiment of the text ; and the meaning of that august and 
solemn admonition is, "Bear ye in mind your spiritual leaders, 
seeing that they have spoken unto you the very message of 
God. Keep your eye on their lives, and especially mark 
their glorious end, and become ye imitators of their faith in 



to the Palm- Branch, 235 

a personal Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day and for 
ever, and therefore as ready to be your Saviour as he was to 
be theirs." 

With regard to the application of the test, whether a 
prophet speaks the Word of God or not, how shall we know 
that the message which God's spiritual leader brings to us 
has the authority of the Most High ? Even this is not left 
without criteria or means of forming a judgment. For 
instance, we are told in the eighth chapter of the prophecy 
of Isaiah, one of the great marks that shall always distinguish 
the utterances of a true spiritual leader. In the twentieth 
verse of that chapter we read *' To the law and to the 
testimony : if they speak not according to this word it is 
because there is no light in them." That is the first test. 
Does the preaching or teaching of a spiritual leader 
correspond with the written Word of God ? There is to be 
found the infallible standard of doctrine and duty. There 
is the great court of final appeal ; beyond this no appeal 
can be carried, even to the throne of God, because the 
authority of God is in that book : and therefore he says, 
*' Test every spiritual leader by the law and by the testimony 
of Holy Scripture, and if he speaks not according to this 
word, there is no light in him, and therefore he can shed no 
light on your spiritual darkness and duty." That criterion 
would unseat from their thrones hundreds of so-called 
spiritual leaders, who, in this day, to the astonishment of 
those of us who thoroughly believe this Word of God, seem 
to consider that their office is rather to cast doubt on the 
Holy Scripture than to confirm the confidence of men in 
this blessed Word ; men who seem to use the pulpit as the 
place from which to spread rather their own misgivings and 
negations than their own convictions and affirmations, and 
who employ both tongue and pen rather to destroy than to 
construct faith in other souls. For one, I say, away with all 
these leaders ! They are not God-given men. Again, let it 



236 From the Pulpit 

be put on record, that the Jfirst test that a man is God's 
leader and speaks God's message, is that, accepting this 
Word of God as his guide, as the source from which he 
derives the authority of his message, the substance of his 
message and the spirit of his message, he preaches and 
teaches nothing new — old truths in new lights, it may be, 
but no new truths, for there are none. That which is new 
and not old is not true. All spiritual truth is as old as God 
is, and even the revelation of spiritual truth is as old as the 
Bible is. Men may talk about " progressive theology," but 
such a progressive theology only goes backwards, pro- 
gressing only in the wrong direction. There is no addition 
to be made to the law and testimony. The only addition 
possible is in the spiritual interpretation and understanding 
of the law and testimony by the increase of spiritual insight 
and life in the teacher and the believer. That is the only 
true progress ; and if people would pay more attention to 
their capacity for progress in that direction, leaving the 
Word of God unmutilated, and seeking simply to open 
their own minds and hearts to its testimony and to the 
incoming of the Holy Ghost, we should find, instead of a 
progressive theology, progressive theologians and progressive 
disciples. 

A second test that the spiritual leader is delivering God's 
message is to be found in the fact that he considers his own 
thoughts and conceptions as insignificant in comparison 
with those of God. They are mere "chaff." If they 
include and embrace the Word of God, and are the means 
of setting forth that Word, they are, like the husk, valuable 
for the sake of the kernel within ; but if it be only their own 
dreams and visions that these teachers are giving to men, 
there is nothing but chaflf without a kernel, to be borne 
away by the first wind that blows. And so Jeremiah says 
concerning the preaching of the Word : " What is the chaff to 
the wheat? " We have long insisted, and again emphatically 



to the Palm-Branch. 237 

repeat, that what the people need on matters of doctrine and 
duty, is not what *' I think " or another man " thinks " (for 
all have equally a right to 'Hhink,") but what God thinks. 
Man's " opinion " changes ; God's opinion never changes ; 
man's "conceptions" of truth differ; God's idea of truth is 
eternally the same. 

A third evidence is given to us in the second Epistle to 
the Corinthians, in the first chapter, and it is especially 
necessary to emphasize this in our day. Paul says, in the 
seventeenth verse " The things that I purpose, do I pur- 
pose according to the flesh, that with me there should be 
yea, yea, and nay, nay ? But as God is true, our word toward 
you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, 
who was preached among you by us, even by me and 
Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him 
was yea." That passage seems by many hard to be under- 
stood, but it is very simple. *' Yea " is the word of affirma- 
tion — " It is so." " Nay " is the word of denial — " It is not 
so." Paul says, " Our preaching among you was not yea and 
nay." It did not consist of alternate positive and negative 
statements of affirmations here and denials there ; but it 
was one great, emphatic "Yea," that is, the utterance of 
positive truth backed by positive conviction. There are 
some professed teachers who, as I said before, seem to feel 
themselves called upon to tell others what they doubt. 
Goethe, the sceptic, says, " Give us your convictions ; as for 
doubts, we have quite enough of our own." Men have no 
need to have their faith destroyed ; they rather want to have 
it built up. They have no need to have doubts implanted 
in their minds ; doubts spring up Uke weeds. What we want 
is faith, and, in order to faith, we want men of positive con- 
viction, speaking positive truths. And here is another sign 
of a God-sent leader. He comes before men with truths and 
facts that he doubts not, to speak what he knows, and so 
he speaks with the positiveness and authority of absolute 



238 From the Pulpit 

certainty. "• We know that if our earthly house of this taber- 
nacle were dissolved,'" etc. " We know that we have passed 
from death unto life." " We know him that is true." '* We 
know that we have eternal life." " We know that we are 
of God." Who would not rather hear a preacher of the 
gospel say with confident certainty of conviction, " One thing 
I know," than to have him tell you ten thousand things that 
he did not know, or of which he was uncertain ? 

A fourth sign that one is speaking according to the Word 
of God, is that the true teacher of Christ speaks by the 
testimony of the Holy Ghost In the first Epistle to the 
Corinthians, the second chapter, we read these words : " I 
brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of 
speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of 
God. For I determined not to know anything among you, 
save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you 
in weakness, and in fear, and much trembling. And my 
speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of 
man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of 
power ; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of 
men, but in the power of God." A true spiritual leader will 
be known by the fact that, when he speaks to men, his 
utterance is attended with the demonstration of the Holy 
Ghost — not simply the demonstration of logic, but the de- 
monstration of the Holy Spirit; that is to say, God will 
acknowledge and own his appointed leader by accompanying 
his teaching with his own power. 1 here will be conversions 
among the unsaved ; there will be edification and sanctifica- 
tion among believers; there will be a stirring up in the 
church of God and in the world when God's anointed king 
wields God's sceptre, and delivers God's message. It is a 
sign of spiritual leadership that spiritual power, in some 
form, attends the utterance of God's message. 

Here, then, are God's great marks of a spiritual teacher : 
he will speak according to the written Word of God ; he 



to the Palm- Branch. 239 

will not deliver himself of mere human opinions ; he will 
speak the language of personal conviction and positive state 
ment; and he will speak with the demonstration of the Holy 
Spirit. When you find those four things united, you need 
have no more doubt that the spiritual teacher is one who 
is delivering to you the message of God. 

Another test is hinted by Jeremiah, in the twenty- third 
chapter, where he writes about the false prophets, who 
delude and deceive Israel '''by their lies and by their lightness.'^ 
Notice the collocation of those two words, '^ lies and light- 
ness^'' i. e., falsehood and frivolity ! In proportion to the 
soundness of a gospel preacher, his attachment to the Word 
of God, the depth of his experience, and the consistency of 
his life, will be the solemnity with which he preaches. On 
the other hand, when a man cuts loose from the Word of 
God, and begins to lead an inconsistent life, and loses hold 
on a personal Saviour, he begins to talk frivolity. For 
myself, although I have the keenest sense of the humorous 
and the ridiculous, and doubt not that humour has its part 
to play in a man's service, and has its lawful place in his 
utterance, I have always avoided conscientiously all in- 
vasions of the solemnity of the house of God by any jesting 
or trifling. And why ? Suppose you go to a physician, be- 
lieving yourself to have a cancer on the breast that is eating 
away at your vitals, and so close to your heart that it im- 
perils your very existence. You go to one who is accus- 
tomed to deal with cancer as his specialty. You open your 
mind to him, and show him the cancerous sore. With a 
smile and a joke, he says, *' Oh, just go home and put on a 
bread and milk poultice." What would you think ? You 
would come to the conclusion either that the man does not 
know anything about cancers, or else that you have nothing 
serious to worry about — would you not ? You come to the 
house of God ; the man in the pulpit professes to deal with 
the realitits and verities of eternity, and to speak in the name 



240 From the Pulpit 

of God to men ; he professes to believe that you are a lost 
sinner, that perdition is before you, and that there is no hope 
for you except in the blood of Jesus Christ And yet he 
gets up and begins to trifle, to talk lightly and deal in 
frivolities . and you come to the conclusion either that he 
does not believe his own message, or else that you are in no 
danger. I therefore protest that, for the preacher of the 
gospel, no attitude of mind is proper, except the solei?itiity 0/ 
deep earnestness ; and that lies are scarcely more delusive 
than hghtness on the part of a gospel preacher. And so God 
would have his appointed leaders manifest and exhibit the 
fact that they are his appointed leaders, not only by their 
cHnging to the Word of God, by their assertion of positive 
conviction in positive statement, by the abundant power of 
the Spirit of God in their ministry, but also by the solemn 
and awful earnestness with which they press the truths of 
God upon the consciences of men. 

Let us now consider briefly the other two great marks of 
an anointed king of God — the personal faith in a 
personal Christ, and the holy course of life that 
ends in a glorious immortality. Do not you see a " pro- 
gress of doctrine" here? — a development of truth? How 
can a child of God become God's anointed teacher and 
preacher to men, if the Word of God has not first taken 
hold of himself and made a new man of him ? How 
can he preach the Christ of God, who is the centre of 
the gospel revelation, unless he personally believes in that 
Christ, and believes on that Christ, and is one with 
him by faith ? Is not the preaching of the gospel experi- 
mental t Men do not want a mere intellectual display 
of learning, even though that learning be the mastery of the 
contents of the Word of God. You all like to hear a man 
speak whose heart speaks to your heart, instead of his head 
speaking to your head? That man preaches the gospel 
most powerfully on whose soul that gospel has first wrought 



to the Palm-Branch. 241 

the very results that he seeks to work in the souls of others. 
If I am not enamoured of Christ, I cannot make Christ 
appear as the Sun of righteousness, in whose presence all 
the stars fade. If he is not to me as precious ointment 
poured forth, that fills every apartment of my being with its 
glorious savour, how can I make him appear precious and 
fragrant to you ? If he has not redeemed me from my sin, 
with what force can I assure you that he will redeem you 
from yours ? If he has not satisfied my soul, how can I 
assure you that you will find in him the living bread and 
water that make hunger and thirst impossible ? God's 
anointed king, who shall melt a million wills into the will of 
God, must be the man who comes with God's message, that 
has set his soul afire, and has set his own tongue ablaze. He 
must feel its melting power who would make others feel it. 
The man who preached in this Tabernacle, was a living 
sermon on this text. Let us look at this magnificent 
example of these principles, which was thus, for thirty years, 
furnished in this very pulpit, and for nearly forty years in his 
ministry in the city of London. God's word to this congre- 
gation to-night is, " Remember your great spiritual leader, 
who spoke to you the word of God. Mark his life, and its 
end, and copy his faith." 

Charles H. Spurgeon was the most notable example that 
modern times have furnished of the union of these three 
elements to which I have adverted. There has been 
perhaps, no preacher of the age or century who has so rigidly 
confined his message to the Word of God as did that man. 
I call this congregation to witness, that they have heard from 
no other living preacher, messages so saturated with the 
thought and very dialect of the Holy Scriptures. It has been 
my privilege to hear most of the greatest preachers of the 
world, and I say, without depreciating any other man, living 
or dead, that I never heard such a gospel preacher as Charles 
H. Spurgeon. Nearly twenty-six years ago I was in this 

16 



242 From the Pulpit 

Tabernacle, in the month of August, 1866. I remember just 
where I sat, and the whole scene is indelibly impressed on 
my memory. I had then myself been preaching the gospel of 
Jesus Christ for more than six years, as an ordained minister, 
but on that morning I was convicted of sin. Such preaching 
I never had heard ; such praying I never had heard ; 
such praising I never had heard ; and I went home to be 
a different man. That morning's experience revolutionized 
my ministry. It created in me a divine dissatisfaction with 
everything that I had been or done before, for I saw how 
mighty the simple gospel might be made, backed by deep 
heart-conviction and preached with a positiveness of 
statement; and I said, "If Christ Jesus, and he alone, can 
be made so gloriously attractive as that, and draw the 
people in such multitudes, God forbid that I should attempt 
any other method of making my life serviceable to men, or 
of drawing the people within the sound of my voice ! " And 
if there is any power in my preaching of the simple gospel 
I owe it, under God, to what I heard from Charles Haddon 
Spurgeon in 1866. I challenge you to find any man living 
who exalts Christ more than he did, whose personal con- 
viction of the truth was more positive, or who lived out, to 
the end, more consistently, the faith he preached. 

Some say that he was so positive in his beliefs, that he 
had no compassion upon people who doubted. Would that 
we had many more like him ! He would not encourage 
doubt where doubt concerned the infallible Word of God. 
He was not the man to countenance the notion that doubt 
is something meritorious, the sign of a higher order of 
intellect and culture, a notion which is one of the subtlest 
snares of the day in which we are living. Doubt is so in 
the fashion, that the '* first families " in the intellectual 
world have adopted a new escutcheon, or shield, to signalize 
their intellectual greatness, and on that shield they have had 
engraved a huge question mark, an interrogation point (?), 



to the Palm-Branch. 243 

as though the mark of a great mind and superb culture is to 
question all things that have been undoubted, and put a 
doubt upon all the verities of God. 

Dr. C. F. Deems says, '* believe your beliefs, and 
doubt your doubts." Never make the mistake of believing 
your doubts and doubting your beliefs, for that temptation 
is in the very atmosphere of this sceptical age. Men and 
women are prone to doubt the things that have always been 
believed, and to believe the things that at least have been 
always doubted, and so to transfer their confidence to the 
wrong side of the scale. I bless God for the man that stood 
in this pulpit. He knew whom he believed, and knew the 
truth, for all his testimony was the result of experience and 
experiment. There must be an awful condemnation in 
store for those who, in this place, have heard this greatest of 
gospel preachers, and have not yet believed. I would to 
God that I had the tongue of the archangel to plead with 
and persuade you. Suppose that God should say to you, in 
eternity, only this one word: '•'■ Re7nemher, remember, 
REMEMBER " ! What if, hereafter, your mind is 
compelled to turn back to the sermons that you have heard 
delivered with such transcendent power from this platform, 
by that departed saint, and you must " remember " how he 
never preached a sermon in which he did not plead with 
sinners. 

When he was a lad he wandered through the place 
in which he lived seeking to find some comfort for his 
awakened soul, and could not, until at last he heard a plain 
sermon, whose message was: ''^ Look u7ito me and be ye 
saved, all the ends of the earths Then, the same day, he 
heard another sermon about being *' accepted in the 
beloved," and he came home and told his father that he 
learned the way of salvation in the morning, but that he 
found the secret of pardon, peace and conscious acceptance 
in the evening. What a day that was for him ! " And now " 



244 From the Pulpit 

he said, *' / will never preach a gospel sermon in which a 
sinner may not find the tvay to Jesus Christ'^ I do not think 
that there has been anoiher man in the century who could 
say that. For myself, while I have tried to be a gospel 
preacher, I am sure I have preached many sermons in the 
course of my life, in which a sinner would have found it 
very difficult to discover the message of grace, or the way of 
salvation. Yet I bless God that, when I came to preach in 
this pulpit, I resolved, God helping me, that I would never 
henceforth preach a sermon in which I did not, in some form 
or other, uphold the crucified Christ. Well may less faith- 
ful preachers envy that blessed man, who could thus look 
back over forty-two years of his preaching of the gospel, and 
could never recall a sermon through which a sinner could 
not have found Christ ! I pray God that you, who have sat 
under such a ministry, may not be lost, else you will be 
dreadfully lost. I pray you do not persist in going down to 
perdition, for every sermon that you have heard from 
Charles H. Spurgeon will be an additional weight on you to 
sink you down to the lowest depths. Remember him. He 
has been taken from you, but remember him. Remember 
his message. Follow his faith. Mark the consistency and 
beauty of his life, and even at this late day be turned to the 
Saviour that he served, and follow him. 

I will read to you, as I close, a passage from one of Mr. 
Spurgeon's sermons, which he preached at Park Street 
Chapel, Southwark, in 1858. It was on the subject of 
"Death a Sleep"; and in the course of it he used these 
words — let us think of him as saying them to us to-night : — 

" And now, beloved, we shall soon all of us die. I shall 
have a gravestone in a few years planted over my grave in 
memory of me. Some of you I hope may say, ' There lies 
our minister, who once gathered us together in the house of 
God, led us to the mercy seat and joined us in our song. 
There lies one who was often despised and rejected of men, 



to the Palm-Branch, 245 

but whom God did nevertheless bless to the salvation of our 
souls, and whose testimony he sealed in our hearts and 
consciences by the operation of the Holy Ghost.' Perhaps 
some of you will visit my tomb and bring a few flowers to 
scatter upon it in glad and grateful remembrance of the 
happy hours that we spent together in the house of God." 

It almost seems to me that, absent, he is still present and 
pleading with souls here to come to Christ. If there be any 
such thing in heaven as a knowledge of what is going on, on 
earth, Charles Haddon Spurgeon is assuredly looking down 
on this great congregation to-night. If there is such a 
thing as prayer in heaven, he is praying now for souls in 
this assembly. We know nothing about the communication 
between this world and the other ; but communication will 
be opened by-and-by, and with each one of you in turn. 
While the Lord tarries, let us hope that Charles Haddon 
Spurgeon's reward will go on accumulating even now in 
multiplied conversions. But, best of all, we would have the 
jewels in the Saviour's crown made complete, and Christ 
see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. 

Here stood, for all these years, one of God's anointed 
kings. He preached the gospel with royal authority and 
spiritual power ; he preached it with positive conviction ; 
with personal faith in a personal Saviour, for I never knew 
a man whose heart bounded toward a personal Christ with 
intenser love than his. He preached it by the demon- 
stration of the Holy Ghost. Multitudes were converted 
and saved and rejoice in God to-day ; and I say to you 
now, solemnly, that if any of you have ever been doubtful 
that this is the Word of God, ever been doubtful that there 
is such a person as the Holy Ghost, ever been doubtful 
that there is such a thing as a transforming power in the 
Christian life, that departed Pastor ought to be the sufficient 
evidence of Chri<^tianity to you all ; for there is no possi- 
bility of accounting for that one man if there is riot a God ; 



246 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch, 

if this Bible is not his Word ; if Christ is not a real Saviour ; 
and if the Holy Ghost does not give the new heart and 
transform the life into the image of God. In the face of 
all infidels of all ages, and of the abounding infidelity of 
the present age, I boldly affirm that that one man, who 
has recently gone from us into the eternal glory, is the 
standing refutation of infidelity. He can be accounted 
for in no way, except by God the Father, God the Son, 
and God the Holy Ghost. The only philosophy sufficient 
to explain him is that this Bible contains, and is, the very 
Word of God, and that the message faithfully proclaimed, 
embedded and embodied in the heart and expanded in 
the life, is the essential divine message of reconciliation 
and salvation. 

I can say no more. May God the Holy Spirit seal to 
your mind and heart the message of life and salvation that 
Mr. Spurgeon preached in this pulpit ; and make it impos- 
sible for you to do otherwise than " remember the word 

THAT HE SPAKE UNTO YOU, — BEING YET PRESENT WITH 

vou " ! Amen. 



A SERMON DELIVERED BY 
REV. ARTHUR T. P I E R S O N, D.D., 

IN THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, 
On Thursday Evening, February 2st/i, 1892. 

" I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which 
dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice ; and I 
am persuaded that in thee also." — 2 Timothy 1. 5. 

" Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been 
assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them ; and that from a 
child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee 
wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, All scrip- 
ture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness : that the man of 
God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." — 
2 Timothy iii. 14-17. 

You will all expect me not only preach the gospel, but 
also to speak of that departed saint and pastor, preacher 
and organizer, who for so long a time, stood in this pulpit 
as God's ambassador. Happily, it is quite easy and natural 
to combine these two things. It is not every man of 
whom we might discourse, and at the same time, preach 
the gospel; but as Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a kind 
of living gospel, to talk about him is to talk about the 
blessed Master himself, whose he was, and whom he served. 
So I shall endeavour, by God's help, in some measure to 
meet your expectation, by combining gospel truth, with an 
illustration and example of it, in the beloved and departed 
Spurgeon. 



248 From the Pulpit 

No question absorbs more of the thought, especially of 
the young, than the question. What are the secrets of 
success in life ? Every one of us desires success. Failure 
is humiliating, disappointing, disastrous. Success is in- 
spiring, encouraging, rewarding. 

What, then, are the secrets of the highest success ? Not 
a success that is temporary and transient; not a success 
which is deceptive and superficial; not a success which, 
as God interprets it, is itself failure; but a success which 
God counts such, and which in God's book of remembrance 
has an honourable record; for there is a scroll on which 
stands no unworthy name, and where no deed done for 
Christ and for humanity, fails of an honourable, illustrious, 
and enduring record. And the question is, " How may my 
name stand on that scroll, emblazoned in letters of light, 
with a record as imperishable as the life of God ? " That 
is an aspiration which may well put to shame any inferior 
and worldly ambition. Such an aspiration is not unworthy 
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, " who, for the joy that was 
set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame." 

These verses from the second Epistle of Paul to Timothy, 
as we shall see, if we closely and carefully examine them, 
suggest to us certain great secrets of a successful life; 
and for convenience sake, I will select first the foundation ; 
second, familiarity with the Scriptures; third, faith in a 
personal Saviour; and fourth, furnishing for good works. 
All these four are suggested in these verses, and constitute, 
in fact, the leading thoughts of this passage. 

The foundation of Timothy's successful life was laid in a 
holy ancestry ; the source of his knowledge and wisdom was 
found in familiarity with the entire Word of God ; the bond 
of faith in the personal Saviour supplied the personal 
element and inspiration; and last of all, there was a 
thorough furnishing or complete equipment for the work 
of life. Of course there may be other secrets of power; 



to the Palm-Brmich, 249 

and yet I question whether, within these four, there may 
not lie the germ of every possible secret of the highest 
success, I shall first advert to these very briefly, and 
then show how they were illustrated in the marvellous 
career of that servant of God, whose work of faith and 
whose voice of witness we shall henceforth know only in 
remembrance. 

I. First, let us look at those foundations of success, 

WHICH ARE LAID IN A GODLY PARENTAGE AND ANCESTRY. 

When a distinguished philosopher and wise man of these 
modern times was asked the question, " When should the 
character of a child begin to be formed ? " he answered, " At 
least, one hundred years before the child is born." And 
this was no jest : he indulged in no trifling. He meant 
that in parental character — nay, even farther back than that 
— in ancestral character — there were found the formative 
influences that determine largely what the child or the 
grandchild shall be. We do not sufficiently appreciate the 
far-reaching influence of what is called, in these days, 
"heredity," or the influence that flows down through the 
channels of our ancestry and afl'ects our character, our con- 
duct, and, largely, our destiny. In the recent criminal 
investigations in the United States of America, there was 
found a family, known as the Jukes family, that was traced 
through all the branches back to one godless, profane stock. 
To one vile man were traced, directly, 709 descendants, and 
indirectly, 1,200. The most of these were criminals, vaga- 
bonds, outcasts and paupers. At least, 76 of the number 
had been habitual criminals, guilty of 115 different offences; 
and there were 52 per cent, of all the women in that large 
family that were abandoned, living by the price of their own 
shame. Most of these descendants had been for some time, 
greater or less, in prison. There were not more than 20 of 
the entire 709 that had ever learned a skilled trade, and 10 
out of the 20 had learned that trade in jaiL Now here were 



250 From the Pulpit 

from 700 to 1200 characters, mostly criminal, all of whom 
could be traced to one ancestral fountain. Those who 
have been familiar with such slums in great cities as the Five 
Points in New York, and the Seven Dials in London — those 
who have seen the successive crops of generation after 
generation of iniquity, will know how the product deteriorates, 
and by how fearfully rapid a descent children sink to lower 
and lower depths of degradation and depravity. If this is 
the case where vice and crime are regnant, who shall dare 
to tell us that there may not be a corresponding ascent to 
higher levels, when godly parents, holding body, mind, and 
will in subjection to conscience and the Spirit of God, beget, 
conceive, and rear their children in the fear of God ? We 
have no reason to hope that children will ever be regenerated 
before birth, though many have, doubtless, like John the 
Baptist, been full of the Holy Ghost from their mothers' 
womb ; but I have no doubt that godly parents, by self- 
sacrifice and self-control in the grace of God, may transmit 
to children aptitudes^ to say the least, for a higher mental, 
moral, and spiritual condition than would have been possible 
under other circumstances ; and these aptitudes may, at 
least, prepare the way for altitudes — higher elevations, nobler 
and purer and hoiler attainments, characters and lives. Paul 
called to remembrance the unfeigned faith which was in 
Timothy, which dwelt first in his grandmother Lois and his 
mother Eunice. That is to say, there was a sort of heredity 
to his faith ; it bore the parental complexion and feature, 
and there was a connection between the faith of the mother 
and the faith of the child, and even that of the grandmother 
and the grandchild. Here, then, the foundations of a suc- 
cessful life were laid in parental consecration. I speak of 
this first, not only because it is first in the text, but because 
I am addressing largely those who are, or in the future are 
likely to be, parents. I beseech you, sanctify your bodies, 
your minds, your hearts. Sanctify wedlock and marriage. 



to the Palvi-Brancli. 251 

Let children be begotten, conceived, born, reared, in the 
fear of God, and let it be felt to be the most solemn responsi- 
bility that any human being can assume in the eyes of God, 
to bring a child into this world. These are delicate subjects, 
for the most parts forbidden to the pulpit ; but the time is 
coming when this mock-modesty will no longer be coun- 
tenanced, and when ministers of Christ shall feel free to 
speak in the name of God concerning the springs of human 
life in parental character and personal self-dedication, and 
how those springs may be purified with the salt of the gospel 
II. The second secret of a successful life, here unveiled 

to us, is FAMILIARITY WITH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. It is 

said of Hengstenberg, the famous scholar, that on one 
occasion in the presence of his students, he took up a 
Greek New Testament and said, " Young gentlemen, within 
the covers of this book, all the wisdom of the ages is con- 
centrated." If I might contribute my little word of witness 
on this great subject, I have found in the patient study ot 
the Word of God, in the original tongues, which began 
when I was twelve years of age, the fountain of the highest 
knowledge and wisdom — knowledge is only the accumula- 
tion of information, but wisdom is skill and sagacity in the 
use of knowledge. . That one book imparts both, and is 
itself a library as well as an encyclopaedia. To the fervent, 
devout, and careful student that one book brings the advan- 
tages of a university education. All the treasures of divine 
wisdom and knowledge that can be communicated to man, 
are hid in this Thesaurus or treasury of God. And those 
who, from beginning to end, revere it as the Word of God, 
those who study it daily, systematically, and prayerfully, 
those who believe it to be the utterance of the Holy Ghost, 
and therefore to be illumined properly to our understanding 
and heart only by the Holy Ghost, and who both expect 
and receive divine guidance in searching into these wonders, 
will find in the Bible everything that stimulates the noblest 



252 From the Pulpit 

thought, the purest love, the most correct conscientious 
judgment, and the hoHest and firmest resolve. 

Begin therefore with children, and teach them the Holy 
Scripture. Let children commit the Scriptures to memory, 
even before they are able to understand the words which 
they commit, for, be assured, while such commission to 
memory of the Holy Scriptures in childhood, may, for the 
time being, oftentimes be a form, without a proper and in- 
telligent apprehension, that form will abide in the memory, 
to be filled out by increasing intelligence and growing 
appreciation of what the words contain and express. 

I am thankful to God, in every fibre of my being, that 
for thirty years I have been accustomed to commit to 
memory, day by day, texts of Scripture ; and, 2^ the 
Malagasy, during the great persecution of twenty-five years 
in Madagascar, found that the Scriptures which they had 
put in memory's keeping, could neither be torn to pieces, 
nor burned to ashes, but were their permanent and per- 
petual possession, so I bless God that, however men might 
destroy the written Word of God as printed in various 
languages, upon the unseen tablets of my own intellectual 
and moral being, much of the Word of God is permanently 
engrossed, and only the annihilation of my memory could 
remove it. From a child let your little ones learn the 
Holy Scriptures, and commit their sacred words to memory ; 
and then, so far and so fast as the understanding enlarges 
by experience and observation, the form of sacred words 
will become more pregnant with the spirit, and what was, 
in the child, the mere shell of knowledge, shall be found 
to hold a precious kernel for his intellectual and spiritual 
apprehension and appreciation. 

in. The third element in success suggested here is faith 
IN A PERSONAL Saviour. Whenever we stop short of the 
Christ of God, we have not found the centre even of gospel 
truth. The Word of God, to those who carefully study it, 



to the Palm-Branch, 253 

seems, the more they search it, only a firmament for the 
glorious display of the Sun of Righteousness, or a garden 
for the setting forth of the beauty of the Rose of Sharon, 
and the diffusing of his sacred fragrance. To those who 
love the Christ of the Scriptures, the Church itself in its best 
estate is only a telescope, through which to look at the Star 
of Bethlehem ; to separate it from all surrounding objects, 
and limit the field of vision so that one may gaze upon it 
with the more satisfaction and the more enlargement of soul ; 
and every fellowship of disciples becomes the more precious, 
because in the resemblance of the children of God to the 
eternal Son of God, his image is made more vivid and 
visible. We must magnify the personal bond of faith ! 
Suspect any creed that either leaves out the Christ or 
obscures him. Suspect any church that teaches you to look 
at its machinery of ordinances and sacraments, rather than 
through and past them all, to the eternal Redeemer himself. 
Suspect any work, even of mercy and charity and philan- 
thropy, that leaves out of view the glory of Jesus Christ. 
The personal bond is that which determines the Christian, 
for Christianity is not a creed without a life, any more than it 
is a life without a creed. Christianity is CHRisx-ianity. It 
makes Christ central in its doctrine, central in its duty, 
central in the destiny of believers; and whoever has not 
gotten hold of Christ, has not gotten hold of Christianity. 
Humboldt, the great German, wrote five volumes of " The 
Cosmos," or description of the material universe ; but in 
those five volumes I have never yet found the word *' God." 
Some people discuss Christianity in volumes, and do not 
see that the King of the Christian system, who, from his 
throne, sways his sceptre over all Christian doctrine, and 
life, and history, is the eternal Son of God, 

Moreover, no man understands the Bible who does not 
understand Christ, for Christ is the key of the Bible. He in- 
terprets types ; he fulfils prophecies ; he unlocks even historic 



254 From the Pulpit 

characters and historic events. Adam and Abraham and 
Joseph, Moses and Joshua, David and Solomon, Daniel and 

Isaiah, are enigmas if you do not understand Christ. He 
unlocks the mysteries of the word, and the blood that he 
shed unlooses the seven-sealed book of the Apocalypse. 

IV. One other secret of success suggested by the text 
demands notice, before I apply and illustrate these truths 
by that remarkable life that has faded out from before our 
eyes; and that secret is the thorough furnishing for 

GOOD WORKS. 

" Thoroughly furnished unto all good works." It is not 
to be overlooked that this furnishing, like the learning, 
the wisdom, the knowledge, to which we have referred, is 
here traced to the Holy Scriptures. " All scripture is given 
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine," — 
that is teaching ; '"' for reproof," — that is the rebuking of 
evil and the stirring up of the conscience ; "for correc- 
tion," — that is the reinstatement of the man after he has 
fallen, putting him upon his feet ; " and instruction in 
righteousness," — that is the full training of the man in the 
knowledge and performance of all that which is righteous 
in God's sight ; " that the man of God may be made 
perfect," or complete, *' thoroughly furnished," or equipped, 
*' unto all good works." 

The Bible is, then, not only the source and foundation 
of the highest knowledge and wisdom, it is the House 
Beautiful, such as Bunyan saw in his vision of the pilgrim ; 
within it there is everything that a pilgrim can ask : the 
Dormitory, where he can rest after the weariness of the 
labour and toil of his march, the Refectory where he will 
find living bread and hving water, the milk for the babe, 
the strong meat for the man, and the delicious honey out 
of the rock. There is the Picture Gallery, where he shall 
look on the characters of olden times portrayed for warn- 
ing, on the one side, for imitation on the other. In that 



to the Palm-Branch. 255 

House Beautiful is the Armoury, where he can equip him- 
self from head to foot with the complete panoply of God. 

There is also the Lavatory where the fountains of water and 
of blood give him perfect cleansing from the penalty and 
power of sin. Not only so, but the Observatory through 
whose windows he can look out on celestial scenes, and 
even into the very face of God. There is nothing that 
cannot be found in that House Beautiful for him who goes 
forth as God's pilgrim-saint to God's work and war in this 
wicked world. 

Let us now spend a little while in illustrating these 
FOUR SECRETS OF SUCCESS by this most remarkable man. 

I need not tell you that Charles Haddon Spurgeon had a 
godly ancestry reaching back to the times of the martyrs. 
He belonged not only to godly parentage and grand parent- 
age, but to a line of ministers of the Word of God, who held 
fast to the old truths which he so gloriously preached, and 
for which he so laboriously strove, so that he was but the 
last result of a series of generations of Christian fathers and 
mothers who had feared God and served him, who had 
studied the Holy Scriptures, and had been linked by faith to 
a personal Christ ; and in himself he represented aptitudes 
that had been created or fostered in them, and so rose to 
altitudes seldom attained by any of the men of his genera- 
tion. As was eloquently said here by Dr. Evans, on the 
day of the commemorative services, some people have tried 
to depreciate Mr. Spurgeon by saying that he was " without 
early advantages of birth and training," but, with Dr. Evans, 
we affirm that no man of his generation, perhaps, was more 
blessed by early advantages of birth and training. Give me 
a godly father and mother, and godly grandparents, and I 
will forego social position and rank and honourable titles, 
and the wealth and the fame of this world. Give me this, 
and I will forego, if it please God, all the schools of man for 
the sake of training in this school of God. 



256 From the Pulpit 

He who owed so much under God to a godly ancestry 
was, from a child, trained in the Holy Scriptures ; and every- 
body who knew him knows how wise they made him unto 
salvation. Even as a boy he knew his Bible ; and at an age 
when most of us were but boys, he began to preach the 
gospel, and, from the first, with such remarkable knowledge 
of the Word of God, and facility and felicity in its presenta- 
tion as turned the eyes of all men to the boy-preacher of 
London. Surely this was no accident. We may talk about 
his " genius," but it was not genius that gave command of 
the Holy Scriptures, and made him mighty in them ; that 
made him famiUar with the events narrated in the Old and 
New Testaments, and filled his mind with those grand illus- 
trations of truth that are scattered all the way through the 
Word of God. All this meant painstaking industry, research, 
prayer for divine guidance, and the opening of mind and 
heart to the instruction of God's Spirit through the Word. 
Mastery comes not by genius, but by effort. A man may be 
born with fine faculties, but acquisitions come by painstaking 
endeavour. And when that boy-preacher startled all London 
by the marvel of his preaching, and still more by the marvel 
of his praying ; it was the result of early and long study of 
the Word on the one hand, and communion with God in 
the closet on the other. From a child he knew the 
Scriptures. What a blessed thing to have a child who is 
precocious in godliness. I do not care for intellectu- 
ally precocious children, but I like a precocious child 
spiritually — a child that has in him the heart of a man, and 
the conscience of a man, and the will of a man, and the 
experience of a man. If you call such a child " abnormal" 
he is not half as abnormal as those Christian disciples of 
sixty years that have not outgrown their babyhood yet 1 
Think of people threescore years of age singing — 

" Where is the blessedness I knew, 
When first I saw the Lord ? " 



to the Palm-Branch. 257 

when they ought to have grown past that blessedness, as the 
dawn of the day moves on to its zenith splendour. 

" Where is the soul- refreshing view 
Of Jesus and His word ? " 

whereas those first views of the Word and of Jesus should 
have been but as the dim glance of the man who saw men 
as trees walking, but who needed another touch to give the 
clearness and the vividness of perfect vision ! 

" What peaceful hours I once enjoyed ! " 
How sweet their memory still ! " 

think of it, sighing for the peace that was felt fifty years 

ago! 

" But they have left an aching void, 
The world can never fill." 

How any ** void " can ache is a mystery to me anyway, but 
if any of you are troubled with an "aching void" I think 
that you would better get the void filled up ! Oh, give us 
stalwart Christian disciples ! How often the little child puts 
the oldest of us to shame by the simplicity of his faith and 
the fervour of his prayers, and the unfaltering nature of his 
trust. May God give us a generation of children that from 
their childhood know the Holy Scriptures I And do you, 
as parents and teachers, be more anxious that your child 
fehall get a knowledge of the Word of God than a smattering 
of French and German and other languages that the inhabi- 
tants of these countries scarcely recognize when they hear 
them ! Why should we be so jealous to have our children 
get some little acquaintance with foreign tongues and modern 
philosophies, and all manner of worldly learning, while the 
Bible is to them a shut and sealed book ? Oh, for the uni- 
versity training of the Word of God ! Oh, for a generation 
of young men and young women like Apollos, '* mighty in 
the Scriptures," though they may have none of the '* learning 
and wisdom of the Chaldeans." 

One never wearies of speaking of the personal faith of 



258 From the Pulpit 

Mr. Spurgeon in a personal Saviour. Nothing has melted 
my heart in the remembrance of him more than this, that 
he always seemed to think of Christ as one that was im- 
mediately in his presence. To a great many people Christ 
is a being of eighteen hundred years ago, and they strain 
their eyes looking back through these long centuries to get 
a glimpse of the crucified and risen Jesus. Mr. Spurgeon 
went into his closet, handled Christ, and saw that it was 
he himself. When he prayed it was a personal prayer into 
a personal ear. His daily walk of faith and hope and 
humility, was a daily fellowship with the Lamb of God. 
He got his inspiration for work from studying Christ. 
Ho|.e found its foundation in the promises Christ affirmed 
and confirmed. He got his courage in suffering from the 
supporting power of those everlasting arms. Christ was to 
him, not a flower in a garden, but a living, present, almighty 
Saviour. Christ was to him not a vision of the past, but a 
vivid reality of the present, and when he communed with 
Jesus Christ it was as a man talks with his friend ; and 
because Christ was to him inseparably associated with the 
Holy Scriptures, — because those Scriptures everywhere testi- 
fied of him, because they foretold him and he fulfilled 
them, he had no patience with those who, in the name of 
scholarship and learning, disintegrate the Rock of Ages, so 
that a man has no firm footing for his feet ! 

If I pause to consider how he was thoroughly furnished 
for all good works, it will be gathering up and braiding 
together all the other thoughts I have presented. Nothing 
is more wonderful about him than how he was furnished foi 
everything he did by the study of the Word of God, and 
contact with a personal Redeemer. That is what I have 
specially sought to emphasize, because all the rest largely 
goes without saying. His furnishing unto all good works 
was derived from the Scriptures of Christ, and the Christ of 
tjie Scriptures, It was a singular providential diversion of 



to the Palm-Branch. 259 

plan, which led him away from university training and 
caused him to enter the gospel ministry without what men 
call in these days, ** a thorough classical education." Why 
did God ordain that, but to give you and me encourage- 
ment ? Had Charles Haddon Spurgeon been a university 
trained man, a prize scholar in Oxford or Cambridge, men 
would have attributed his success very largely to what he 
had learned and acquired in those great schools of human 
learning. But God decreed that that mighty man should 
come before the people without a university to back him, 
that he might prove to men that it was " not by might, nor 
by power," but by the Spirit of the living God, and that his 
success might say, in all future years, to young men like 
you, and the young men of other generations after you, 
that thoroughly to know Christ in the Word of God, and to 
know the Word of God as interpreted by the Christ and the 
Holy Spirit, is the grandest qualification for a Christian 
minister, and a Christian worker, that can possibly be 
bestowed. I wish that I had a thousand times the power 
of emphasis to proclaim and enforce this truth. 

Look at his kaleidoscopic preaching. 1 can think of 
nothing to represent it but a kaleidoscope, which, at every 
turn, reveals new beauties, new combinations, new glories 
of form and colour out of a few small pieces of coloured 
glass ! He took these few great initial truths of the Holy 
Scripture: atonement by blood, substitutionary sacrifice, 
justification by faith, the work of the Holy Ghost in regenera- 
tion and sanctification, and kindred truths to these ; he 
put them within the kaleidoscope of his preaching, and at 
every new turn men saw, from the combination of those 
simple elements, forms of symmetry and colours that had all 
the variety of the rainbow, and they wondered that out of 
the old word of God alone such ever new attractions should 
be revealed. There is the secret of his furnishings for all 
good works. No man will dare to affirm that his furnishing 



26o From the Pidpit 

came essentially from any source but the Word of God and 
the personal experience of the Christ. 

What did Mr. Spurgeon mean when he said that, if at 
any time he lost his track of thought, he put himself into 
his gun and fired himself at the people ? What did he mean 
but that from the depths of an experience of the com- 
munion of his soul with Christ, he drew that impulsive 
and propulsive force that, like the gunpowder in the gun, 
drives the ball to its mark ? Even a mastery of Holy Scrip- 
ture without an experience of grace, is only like the finest 
ordnance without gunpowder or spark of fire. But give us 
first the knowledge of God as here revealed, and then the 
knowledge of God as confirmed by personal contact of 
faith : and you have a mighty piece of ordnance provided 
with an explosive force, that can shake the very walls of the 
fortress of the devil ! 

Here was found his furnishing for all good works. Take 
those two thousand sermons of his, preached in this pulpit, 
printed at a penny a piece, and then scattered in twenty- 
five languages over the entire world, read by thousands 
and millions of readers. Whence came the furnishing for 
these sermons? From that blessed Word. I read with 
greatest interest that address which he delivered before the 
Conference, and which is now published under the name 
of The Greatest Fight in the World. I have no hesita- 
tion in saying that I think that to be the greatest single 
utterance that Mr. Spurgeon ever gave to the church. It 
is, I suppose, the last one that he prepared with careful and 
painstaking elaboration before he left this world. If you 
will read that you will find that, in the first place, it is full 
of the most glorious gospel truths. In the second place, 
it fairly bristles with Biblical illustrations and figures of 
speech. And, in the third place, which is more wonderful, 
it runs in the mould of a Scriptural dialect, as though the 
man were himself first of all saturated with the phraseology 



to the Palm-Branch. 261 

of Scripture, and when he came to express himself on that 
critical occasion, his thoughts fell into the forms of Scrip- 
tural expression as naturally as water runs in the channel 
scooped out for it by the brook. That is a marvellous 
address. I wish it might be published in the cheapest form 
and given away to every living soul that can read the 
English tongue, and then translated into every language 
on earth, that every man that is open to convictions of 
truth might read it. And I would to God that the men 
that have learned the art of preaching a sermon and leaving 
out the Christ, or of preaching the Christ in the language 
and after the fashion of the schools, and so shooting their 
arrows over the heads of the common people, could, from 
that single address, learn the secret of telling the truths of 
the Word of God, " not in words which man's wisdom 
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth,'' expressing 
spiritual things in spiritual terms. I never have met, in all 
my own experience, a discourse that made a deeper impres- 
sion on my mind as to reproducing the prophetical style of 
utterance in the modern pulpit, and so stamping a preacher 
as one of God's prophets. Here is another example of his 
furnishing unto all good works, and its source. 

Whence came those twenty-seven volumes of T/ie Sword 
and the Trotvel ? What are they ? Those volumes are full 
of exposition of the Word, and the practical application of 
the Scriptures to the experience of the godly life. That is 
the soul and substance of twenty-seven years of that monthly 
issue. Take his hundred books : commentaries, tracts, leaf- 
lets, collections of proverbs. What are they? They are 
historical, and biographical, and expository, and exegetical ; 
but the foundation of them is this : Scripture, on the one hand; 
experience of God's life in the soul, on the other. So again, 
for all this wonderful work of an author, he got his furnishing 
in the Word of God, and in the contact with a personal 
Christ. The Treasury of David, that seven-volumed 



262 From the Pulpit 

commentary on that single book of the Bible, the Psalms,— 
which some " higher critics " would make us believe is not 
worthy, after all, of very much study, — has sold more largely 
than any other single commentary in the English tongue 
on one book of the Bible. What are those volumes, again, 
but the evidence that the furnishing for his work was 
a furnishing in Bible knowledge, and in the interpreting 
power of the Christian experience. 

Whence came these institutions ? First of all, where did 
he get the model for this church of Christ ? There is 
nothing else like it, that I know of, anywhere in the world. 
It is a Baptist church in this, that believers' baptism is here 
emphasized, and that immersion in water is the form of bap- 
tism. It is a Methodist church in the ardent zeal, and the 
fervent prayer, and the aggressive work, manifested here, and 
in the audible " amens " and responses that you hear in 
prayer and preaching. It is a Congregational church in 
this, that it is independent of all outside ecclesiastical 
authority, and the people are the ultimate rulers. It is a 
Presbyterian church in this, that the bench of elders is the 
centre of its authority and its life, only that these are more 
consistent Presbyterians than most others, because when they 
choose a man as an elder, that choice carries with it the 
authority to preach, and teach, and administer the sacra- 
ments, if circumstances require, and if the brother exhibits 
the fitness for these duties ; whereas, in other Presbyterian 
churches, if a man is set apart for the eldership, and after- 
wards shows fitness for preaching and teaching, and is 
called to the pastorate of a church, he must be ordained over 
again to make a minister of the gospel of him, which I have 
consistently held for many years to be utterly opposed to all 
New Testament precedent. Mr. Spurgeon, when he com- 
pleted the organization of this church, looked to the Holy 
Scriptures for his model, and because he found, or believed 
that he found, in the New Testament, a bench of elders 



to the Palm-Branch. 263 

that, being once consecrated to the eldership, had right and 
authority to fulfil any function of teaching, preaching, ruling, 
or oversight, he modelled his church on that New Testa- 
ment basis j and I say again in your hearing, and venture my 
reputation upon it, that it is the purest and most apostolic 
specimen of Scriptural Presbyterianism in the world. 

And then I like, again, the Scriptural sentiment here, that 
if any man has or develops the gift of preaching, he has the 
right to preach. These deacons and elders are preachers, 
all of them who have the gift, and I wish that they all felt 
that they had the gift and would go to work ; but what I 
seek to impress is, that, according to his perception and 
understanding of the Word of God, Mr. Spurgeon sought to 
model this greatest church in Christendom ; here, then, is 
another good work which found its furnishing in this blessed 
Book. 

Whence came the Pastors' College ? Whence came the 
Orphanage? Whence came the Almshouses? Their sug 
gestion was found in the Word of God. He looked upon 
those orphans as fatherless ones of whom Christ said, 
"Suffer them to come to me and lead them to my sheltering 
arms." He looked upon the Pastors' College, as a school 
to train those who were dear to Christ, to perpetuate the 
true apostolic succession in the preaching of an apostolic 
gospel. And when these Almshouse were built, or enlarged 
and provided with inmates, was it not for the sake of Jesus 
and the charity commended in the thirteenth chapter of 
first Corinthians, that all this colossal work was done ? 

I have not attempted anything like a eulogium of this 
wonderful man. His works are his encomium ; but I yearn 
to say — especially to young men before me — that you are 
verily guilty before God if your life does not attain a high 
degree of success, for in the midst of the metropolis of the 
world you have a living illustration of how a child, trained 
in the Scriptures, may begin at sixteen years of age 



264 From the Ptdpit 

to preach a mighty gospel, may keep up that preaching 
without interruption, except as his health and strength forbade, 
until he is nearly fifty-eight years of age, and then die in 
the midst of the prime of his life, and at his bier draw forth 
the tears of more disciples of Christ, and I venture to add, 
of more men of the world, than any one man that has 
departed during the present century. Young men, you 
may not have a chance for scholarly learning, but the 
Bible is in your hands, and you can study that. You 
may not have a chance for wealth and worldly honour, but 
you can be rich in the experience of a saint, and be 
honoured as a chosen vessel of God, to bear his name 
before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. 
You may not have opportunities for gratifying a secular 
ambition, but you can gratify in God the aspiration 
after the highest attainments in holiness and the largest 
spheres of service to God and man. I pray you look 
back to-night through the years to the time when the 
little boy knelt in the arbour of his home, and Mr. Knill 
put his hands together on his head in benediction and 
prayer, beseeching God that that little boy might be taken 
up by the power of the Holy Spirit, anointed to be a 
preacher of the gospel, and made a distinguished instrument 
by whom that gospel should pervade the world. We shall 
not perhaps find very much of Mr. Knill on the records of 
history, any more than we hear much of Ananias in 
Damascus in the period of church history in which the 
apostles lived ; but Mr. Knill's prayer over that little boy 
in the arbour, like Ananias's uplifted hands on the head of 
the converted Saul, inseparably links him with the glory of 
Spurgeon's future, as Ananias is linked with the glory of 
Paul the evangelist. 

If you cannot preach like Spurgeon, cannot you pray like 
Knill ? If you cannot claim the genius of Spurgeon, cannot 
you claim the spiritual contact with God that sets apart a 



to the Palm-Branch. 26$ 

child under your hand as a chosea vessel for the Lord ? If 
you can do nothing more, parents, cannot you take your 
children, and, Sunday-school teacher, cannot you take your 
pupils, and lead them to Christ ? You can come down to 
a level with them, make them feel at home in your society, 
and induct them into the mysteries of God and a holy life. 
You cannot possibly tell what God may do with the little 
child that you, as a mother, nourish at your breast, or as a 
teacher seek to lead into the knowledge of God. 

There was a little waif picked up by a Sunday-school 
teacher who gave him a sixpence to induce him to go to a 
Sunday-school, and to that converted man in after years we 
owe the greatest triumphs of Christ in the vast empire of 
India. There was a bishop in the church in the United 
States who was found jn a sugar barrel on the Pacific coast, 
and who was as a poor, homeless little orphan taken up in 
loving arms, led to the Sunday-school, and taught the things 
of God. We look too far for the spheres of service. They 
lie at hand and close by us ; and he that has the spirit of his 
Master, and like him, can take little children in his arms, 
and put his hands upon them and bless them, may be setting 
apart a Samuel, or a John, the Baptist, or a Paul, for the 
work of the modern prophet, preacher, and evangelist. 

My closing word is one of appeal. You sometimes hear 
the gospel preached where only the tongue does the preach- 
ing, and where there seems to be no heart and no spiritual 
experience at the back of the utterance. Charles Spurgeon 
was a man whose heart answered to -the heart of man, as in 
water face answereth to face. 

Once more, in the presence of God and this assembly, let 
it be said, as on a previous occasion, that Charles Spurgeon 
was the perpetual and all -convincing evidence of Christianity. 
The gospel that he preached can never be a falsehood while 
it makes such a man. One such disciple in these days is an 
answer to all infidelity and all irreligion the world over — a 



266 From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 

triumphant vindication of the existence of a God, of 
the truth of these holy Scriptures, of the reaUty of a 
crucified and risen Christ, and of the verity of a present 
Spirit abiding in the church, and working in the world. We, 
at least, have no excuse for our infidelity. The sceptic that 
knows the story of Spurgeon will stand speechless before the 
bar of God when called to account. In the early days of 
the apostles, when the Sanhedrim accused them, and for- 
bade them to preach any longer in the name of Christ, we 
are significantly told that the man who was healed by Peter 
and John stood beside them, and they " could say nothing 
against it" ; and when they went aside to confer about this 
new religion, this concession they were compelled to make — 
" that a notable miracle hath been done by these men we 
cannot deny." 

So I say to you, that the man who stood here, spiritually 
healed of God, was a sufficient answer to all the attacks 
of modern doubt, and so long as the memory of Charles 
Haddon Spurgeon survives, and the savour of his presence 
is shed abroad in the fragrance of that memory, you, that 
hear me now, if you perish, will go down to perdition with a 
weight that will sink the soul to the lowest depths, in that 
you have seen such a visible and living proof of the truth of 
God, and have turned your ears to fables. 



From various Societies Represented at Mr. Spurgeon' 
Funeral. 



Baptist Union. 

Baptist Missionary Society. 

Particular Baptist Fund. 

Baptist Building Fund. 

Baptist Total Abstinence Associa- 
tion. 

Irish Baptist Mission. 

Home Counties' Baptist Association. 

Metropolitan Association of Strict 
Baptist Churches. 

Strict Baptist Mission. 

Suffolk and Norfolk Baptist Union. 

East London Baptist Ministers' 
Fraternal. 

Essex Baptist Union. 

Strict Baptist Pastors' Conference. 

North-West Kent Baptist Associa- 
tion. 

Manchester District Baptist Union. 

Noithern Association . of Baptist 
Churches. 

Regent's Park College. 

Bristol Baptist CoUe^je. 

Nottingham Baptist College. 

Leicestershire Association of Baptist 
Churches. 

Congregational Union of England 
and Wales. 

Congregational Union of Wales. 

Congregational Total Abstinence 
Association. 

Cheshunt College. 

London Missionary Society. 

Wesleyan Methodist Conference. 

Wesleyan Missionary Society. 

Primitive Methodist Conference. 

United Methodist Free Churches, 



Bible Christian Conference. 

West London Mission. 

London Nonconformist Union. 

Protestant Dissenting Mmisters' 
Association. 

The Moravian Church. 

Evangelists' Fraternal. 

Oldham Nonconformist Ministers' 
Association. 

Chesham District Ministers' Frater- 
nal. 

China Inland Mission. 

Young Men's Christian Association. 

Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion. 

Religious Tract Society. 

Sunday School Union. 

Ragged School Union. 

British and Foreign Bible Society. 

Evangelical Alliance. 

Evangelistic Mission. 

Evangelization Society. 

National Temperance League. 

Open-Air Mission. 

City of London Total Abstainers' 
Union. 

Liberation Society. 

Hebrew Christians' Prayer Union. 

Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society. 

Salvation Army. 

Monthly Tract Society. 

Hospital Saturday Fund. 

Society for the Rescue of Young 
Women and Children. 

The Corporation of Croydon. 

Legation of the United States, 
London. 



li^^ of 
uritl|«^, ^fl([ktk^, and §nhlis[ '^tiAit%, 



From which Letters of Condolence and Sympathy 

WERE received BY THE ChURCH AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, 

OR Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon. [See Page 17.] 



BAPTIST CHURCHES. 



Abbey Road, St. John's Wood. 

Abercarn (English). 

Aberdare (Welsh). 

Abertillery, *' Ebenezer." 

Acton. 

Aldershot. 

Appledore, North Devon. 

Ashford, Kent. 

Ashton-under-Lyne, Welbeck 

Street. 
Ayr, N.B. 

Bacup, " Ebenezer." 
Barnsley. 

Bath, Manvers Street. 
Barrow-in-Furness, Abb-^y Road. 
Barnoldwick, near Colne. 
Barnstaple, Boutport Street. 
Battersea Park Road. 
Battersea, York Road. 
Barking, Queen's Road. 
Beccles, Maityrs' Memorial. 
Bedford Row, John Street Chapel. 
Belfast, Regent" Street. 
Belfast Great Victoria Street. 
Birmingham, Stratford Road. 
Birmingham, Graham Street. 
Birmingham, Great King Street- 
Birmingham, Longmore Street. 
Birmingham, Spring Hill. 
Birmingham, Spark brook (Union). 
Birkdale, Lancashire. 



Bishop Burton, Yorkshire. 
Bilston. 
Blackburn. 

Blaenavon, " Horeb." 
Blaenavon, "Ebenezer." 
Bloomsbury Chapel. 
Bombay (India). 
Borough Road. 

Bow, East London Tabernacle. 
Bow Common, Blackthorn Street. 
Bowdon, Cheshire. 
Bournemouth, Lansdown. 
Brompton, Onslow Chapel. 
Bristol, Philip Street. 
Bristol, City Road. 
Bristol, Buckingham Hall. 
Bristol, Tyndale Chapel. 
Bristol, Hillsky. 
Bristol, Broadmead. 
Bristol Tabernacle. 
Bristol, Counterslip. 
Bristol, Kensington. 
Bristol, "Bethesda," Alma Road, 
Stokes Croft, and Totterdown. 
Brixton, Gresham Chapel. 
Brixton, Kenyon Chapel. 
Brixton, Wynne Road. 
Bradford, Westgate. 
Bradford, " Bethel.*' 
Brentford, Park Chapel. 
Bures, Suffolk. 
Bur ton-on- Trent, Derby Street. 



From the Pulpit to the Palm-Branch. 269 



Burnley. 

Burwell, Cambridgeshire. 
Buckley, " Bethel." 
Brockley Road (Church and School). 
Bromley, Kent. 

Bromley Road, Burnt Ash Hill, 
Lee. 

Caersalem, Glamorganshire. 

Calstock and Metherill, Cornwall. 

Camberwell, Cottage Green. 

Camberwell, Denmark Place. 

Camberwell, Clarendon Chapel. 

Cam bridge, ' ' Zion. ' ' 

Camden Road. 

Canning Town, Barking Road. 

Cardiff, Longcross Street. 

Cardiff. Maindy Place. 

Cardiff, Woodville Road. 

Cardigan, Bethania (Welsh). 

Caversham, New Zealand. 

Chatham, " Zion." 

Chester, Grosvenor Park (Church 

and School). 
Chelsea, Lower Sloane Street. 
Cheltenham, Cambray Chapel. 
Christchurch, New Zealand. 
Church, near Accrington. 
Chiswick, Annandale Road. 
Cinderford, Gloucestershire. 
Cirencester. 

Clapham, Courland Grove. 
Clapham, Victoria Chapel. 
Clapton Downs. 
Coatbridge, N.B. 
Coseley, I>arkhouse. 
Coventry, Gosford Street. 
Coventry, Queen's Road. 
Coventry, St. Michael's. 
Colne, East Parade. 
Combmartin, Devonshire. 
Corwen, North Wales. 
Coxall, Shropshire. 
Croydon (Strict and Particular). 
Croydon, West (Church and School . 
Crewe. 
Cross Keys, Monmouthshire. 

Dalston Junction. 
Darlington, Grange Road. 



Dartmouth. 

Dartford. 

Deal, Victoria Chapel. 

Desborough, Market Harborough. 

Devonshire Square. 

Devonport, Hope Chapel. 

D^wsbury. 

Dorchester, Dor ford. 

Dulwich, East, Barry Road. 

Dulwich, East, Lordship Lane. 

Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.A. Endion. 

Durban, Natal (Church and School). 

Ealing, Havcn Green. 
East Dereham, High Street. 
East Finchley. 
East Plumstead. 
Eastbourne, Ceylon Place. 
Edinburgh, Charlotte Square. 
Edinburgh, Dublin Street. 
Elgin, N.B. 
Epworth. 
Erith. 

Falmouth, '* Emmanuel." 

Faringdon, Berkshire. 

Farnworth, Lancashire. 

Farsley, York hire. 

Faversham. 

Forest Gate, Wood Grange. 

Forfar, N.B. 

Gillingham. 

Glasgow, Queen's Park. 
Gosport Tabernacle. 
Gravesend, Windmill Street. 
Greenwich, South Street. 

Hackney, Shored itch Tabernacle. 
Hickney, Mare Street. 
Hackleton, Carey Memorial. 
Halifax, " United Meeting." 
Hampstead, Heath Street. 
Hamburg. 

Harlesden (Church and School). 
Harpole, Northamptonshire. 
Harrow Road, Queen's Park. 
Hastings, Wellington Square. 
Hartlepool, East. 
Hereford. 



2/0 



From the Pulpit 



Hebden Bridge and Birchcliffe, 

Yorkshire. 
Helensburgh, N.B. 
Heywood, Lancashire. 
Highgate. 
High gate Road. 
Hitchin, Walsworth Road. 
Hitchin, Tilehouse Street. 
Honor Oak. 

Holyhead, New Park Street. 
Huddersfield, Salendine Nook. 
Huddersfield, New North Road. 
Hull, George Street. 
Hull, South Street. 

Ilfracombe. 

Ipswich. 

Islington, Salters' Hall Chapel. 

Ja r ro w-on-Tyne. 

Kansas City, Third Baptist Church. 

King's Cross Road, Vernon Chapel. 

Kingstanley, Gloucestershire. 

Kingston. 

KnightoQ, Radnorshire. 

Lancaster, White Cross Street. 

Lee. 

Leeds, Hunslet Tabernacle. 

Leeds, York Road. 

Leeds, South Parade. 

Leicester, Carley Street. 

Leicester, Melbourne Hall. 

Leigh, Lancashire. 

Leith, N.B. 

Leyton, Vicarage Road. 

Leyionstone, Cann Hall Road. 

Leytonstone, Fillebrook. 

Leighton Buzzard, Hcck'iffe Road. 

Liverpool, Waterloo. 

Liverpool, Myrtle Street. 

Long Preston, Yorkshire. 

Louth, Lincolnshire, Northgate. 

Lower Tooting. 

Llangollen, Penybryn. 

Llangollen, "Ebenezer." 

Luton, Park Street. 

Lydbrook. 



Macclesfield, St. George's Street 

(Church and School). 
Maidenhead, Marlow Road. 
Mason, Michigan, U.S.A. 
Maryport, Cumberland. 
Manchester, Haline. 
Manchester, Wakefield Road. 
Manchester, Oxford Road, Union 

Church. 
Manchester, Moss Side. 
Margate, " Ebenezer. " 
Merthyr Tydvil. 
Middlesbrough, Newport Road. 
Milnsbridge, Yorkshire. 
Minneapolis, First Baptist Church. 
Morley, Yorkshire. 
Morriston Tabernacle. 
Mount Eden, New Zealand (Church 

and School). 

Netherton and Dudley. 

New Brompton. 

New Maiden. 

New South gate. 

Newbridge, Monmouthshire 

(English). 
Newbury. 

Newport, Castlehold. 
Newport, Commercial Street. 
Newport, Stow Hill, 
Newport, Summer Hill. 
Newport, Usk Road. 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Jesmond Road. 
Newcastle-on-Tyne,Westgate Road. 
Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grove. 
Notting Hill, Talbot Tabernacle. 
Northampton, College Street. 
Northampton, Grafton Street. 
Northampton, Mount Pleasant. 
Northampton, Princes Street. 
Norwich, St. Clement's. 
Norwich, Sayer Street. 
Norwich, Unthank's Road. 
Nottingham, Hyson Green. 
Nottingham, Woodborough Road. 
Norbiton, Bunyan Chapel. 
Nuneaton and Attleborough. 
N upend, Gloucestershire. 

Old Brentford, North Road. 



io tJie Palm-Branch. 



271 



Old Kent Road, Maze Pond 

(Church and School). 
Oldham, King Street. 
Oxford, Commercial Road (Church 

and Bible-class for Young 

Women). 

Paignton, Devonshire. 
Paisley, Victoria Place. 
Peckham Park Road. 
Peckham, Rye Lane. 
Penarth. 

Penarth, Stanwell Road. 
Penzance. 
Penge Tabernacle. 
Peterhead, N.B., King Street. 
Plumstead, Conduit Road. 
Plymouth, George Street. 
Portsea, Kent Street. 
Portslade-by-Sea, Sussex. 
Portsmouth, Lake Road. 
Pontypridd, " Carmel." 
Pontypridd (Welsh). 
Poplar, Cotton Street. 
Precteign, Radnorshire. 
Preston, Pole Street. 
Putney, Werter Road. 

Radcliffe, Lancashire. 
Ramsgate, Cavendish Chapel. 
Raunds, Northamptonshire 
Reading, Providence Chapel. 
Redditch. 
Regent's Park. 
Rhondda Valley, Pentre. 
Rhondda Valley, Porih. 
Rhondda Valley, Tonypandy. 
Rickmansworth. 
Rick mans worth, Mill End. 
Rochdale, '' Ebenezer." 
Ross, Herefordshire. 
Roseberg, Oregon, U.S.A. 
Rowley and Blackhill. 
Ryde, Isle of Wight. 

Sandown, Isle of Wight. 
Scarborough, Albermarle and 

"Ebenezer." 
Sheerness Tabernacle. 
Sheffield, Cemetery Road. 



Sheffield, Townhead Street. 

Shepherd's Bush Tabernacle. 

Shipley, Yorkshire, '• Bethel." 

Shrewsbury, Claremont Street. 

Skipton- in -Craven, Yorkshire. 

Southend-on-Sea, Clarence Road. 

Southend-on-Sea Tabernacle. 

Southsea. 

Southsea, Elm Grove. 

Southwell, Nottinghamshire. 

South Norwood. 

Southport, Town Hall. 

Streatham, Lewrn Road. 

Stockport. 

Stockton-on-Tees. 

Stamford Hill, Woodberry Dowt). 

Stanningley, near Leeds. 

Stow-on-the-Wold. 

St. Helen's, Lancashire, Park 

Road. 
Stafford. 

Stratford New Town, Major Road. 
Stoney Stratford. 
Sunderland, " Bethesda." 
Sunderland, " Enon." 
Surbiton Hill, Oakland's Chapel. 
Swansea, " Mount Pleasant." 
Swindon Tabernacle. 

Talysarn, Carnarvonshire, "Salem." 

Taunton, Silver Street. 

Tergnmouth. 

Teddington. 

Tenterden. 

Tenby. 

Thornton Heath, '* Beulah " Chapel. 

Tonbridge. 

Trowbridge, Back Street. 

Tredegar. Church Street ^English). 

Treharris, Glamorganshire, 

" Bethel " and Brynhyfryd. 
Transvaal, Pretoria. 
Twickenham Green. 

Upton Chapel. South Lambeth 
Road. 

Ventnor, Isle of Wight. 

Walibam Abbey, Paradise Row. 



272 



From the Pulpit 



Walthara Cross. 

Walthamstow. Boundary Row. 

Walworth Road. 

Walworth, Arthur Street. 

Wahvorih, Wansey Street, 

Walsall, Stafford Street. 

Walsall, Vicarage Walk. 

Wandsworth Road, Victoria Chapel. 

Wandsworth, East Hill. 

Waterbeach. 

Watford, Chalk Hill. 

Watchet and Willirgton, 

Water ford. 

Warminster. 

Wellington, Somerset. 

West Mailing, Kent. 

West Norwood, Chatsworth Road. 

Westboume Grove. 



Westbury Leigh, Wiltshire. 
Westbury, "Providence." 
Weston-super-Mare, Wadham 

Street. 
Whitestone. 

Wiliingham Tabernacle. 
Wimbledon. Queen's Road. 
Wisbech, Hill Street 
Windsor, Victoria Street. 
Wick, N.B. 
Willesden Green. 
Wigan. 

Woolwich, Parson's Hill. 
Woolwich, Queen Street. 
Wolverhampion, Waterloo Road. 
Worcester, Sansome Walk. 

York, Priory Street. 



BAPTIST SOCIETIES, ASSOCIATIONS, &c. 



Anglesea Baptist Association. 

Baptist Mission Camp (14 miles 
from Agra), India. 

Baptist Union of South Africa. 

Baptist Total Abstinence Associa- 
tion. 

Baptist Churches of Leicester. 

Baptist Churches of Belfast. 

Baptist and Congregational Fra- 
ternal, Burnley. 

Baptist Ministers' Conference of 
Boston, U.S.A. 

Baptist Association of Bucks. 

Baptist Building Fund Committee. 

Baptist Union of Great Britain and 
Ireland. 

Baptist Union of Scotland. 

Baptist Union of New Zealand. 

Baptist Tract and Book Society. 

Baptist Missionary Society. 

Baptist Home Missionary Society 
for Scotland 

Baptist Tract Society. 

Breconshire Baptist Association. 

Bristol Baptist College. 

Burnley Baptist and Congregational 
Ministers' Fraternal. 



Cambridge Baptist Association. 

Cardiff, Bininel Street, Baptist 
Church Young People's Im- 
provement Class. 

Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., Baptist 
Ministerial Conference. 

Coventry District of the West Mid- 
land Baptist Association. 

Dacca, Eastern Bengal Mission. 

Delhi, Baptist Zenana Mission. 

Devon Baptist Association (Nor- 
thern Division). 

Devonport, Three Towns Ministers' 
Fraternal (Baptists and Con- 
gregationalists). 

East London Baptist Ministers' 

Fraternal. 
Essex Baptist Union. 

Farsley and District Baptist Union. 

General Baptist Committee. 
German Union of Baptist Churches. 

Home Counties' Baptist Associa- 
tion. 



to the Palm-Branch. 



273 



Irish Baptist Association. 

Ladies' Association for Zenana 
Work in India. 

Leeds, Meanwood Road, Baptist 
Friendly Society. 

Leicester Representative Baptist 
Ministers' Meeting, held in 
Belvoir Street Chapel Vestry. 

Liverpool Baptist Association Com- 
mittee. 

Liverpool Baptist Union. 

London Baptist Association Com- 
mittee. 

London Baptist Board of Ministers. 

London Strict Baptist Ministers' 
Association. 

Manchester Baptist Ministers' Fra- 
ternal. 

Manchester District Baptist Union. 

Metropolitan Association of Strict 
Baptist Churches. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Men's 
Bible-class. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Women's 
Bible-class. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Poor 
Ministers' Clothing Society. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Sunday- 
school. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Alms- 
houses' Sunday-school. 

Midland Baptist Association. 

New York and Ohio, U.S.A., Breth- 
ren of the Pastors' College. 

Northern Baptist Association. 

North- West Kent Baptist Associa- 
tion. 

Norway, Trondhjem, Baptist Com- 
munity. 

Particular Baptist Fund. 



Pastors' College, Tutors and 
Students. 

Pastors' College Evangelical Asso- 
ciation, the Emergency Com- 
mittee, on behalf of the whole 
brotherhood. 

Philadelphia, U.S.A., Conference 
of Baptist Ministers, 

Pioneer Mission. 

Pontrhydyrun, near Pontypridd, 
Faternal Union Baptist 
Ministers. 

Rawdon Baptist College. 
Regent's Park Baptist College 

Committee. 
Regent's Park Baptist College 

Students. 
Rochester, New York, Baptist 

Social Union. 

Secunderabad Baptist Mission 
House. 

South Australian Baptist Associa- 
tion. 

South Australia, Mount Barker, 
Furreedpore Mission. 

Strict Baptist Mission, London. 

Suffolk and Norfolk Baptist 
Union. 

Tamworth Baptist Community. 
Treherbert Hope Baptist Sunday- 
school. 

Union des Eglises EvangMiques 
Baptistes de France. 

Washington City, U.S.A., Baptist 

Ministers' Conference. 
Wallington Strict Baptist Mission. 
Welsh Baptists' Association. 

Yorkshire Association of Baptist 
Churches. 



CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES, SOCIETIES, &c. 

Battersea. 

Barnard Castle, Hall Street. 

Bedworth, Old Meeting. 

18 



Anerley. 

Annan. 

Ashton-under-Ly ne . 



274 



From the Pulpit 



Beverley. 

Birmingham^ Cart's Lane. 
Bishopsgate Chapel. 
Borough (Welsh). 
Borough Road. 
Boston, Mass-, U.S.A. 
Brighton, Clifton Road. 
Bromley, Kent. 
Brixton. 

Camber well New Rrad. 
Canonbury, Harecouit Chapel and 

Sunday-school. 
Cardigan (United). 
Cheshunt College. 
ChishUl. 

Clayland's Road, Clapham. 
Colchester, Lion Walk- 
Commercial Street Congregational 

Young Men's Society. 
Congregational Board, Memorial 

Hall. 
Congregational Union of England 

and Wales. 
Congregational Union of Wales. 
Congregational Total Abstinence 

Association. 
Cork. 
Cork, George Street. 

Dedham, Essex. 

Doncaster. 

Dulwich, " Emmanuel." 

East Carmarthenshire Congrega- 
tional Association. 
East Dereham, Cowper. 
Edinburgh, Charlotte Street. 
Ely. 

Enfield Highway. 
Exeter. 
Exeter, Southemhay. 

Forest Gate. 

Glamorganshire and Carmarthen- 
shire English Congregational 
Union. 

Haddington. 



Hanham, near BristoL 
Heathfield. 

Kentish Town. 

Kidderminster, Dudley Street. 
Kilburn, Greville Place. 

Lambeth, York Road. 
Lancashire Congregational Associa- 
tion. 
Lancaster Road, W. 
Leeds, Headingley Hill. 
Leicester, Humberston Road. 
Leominster. 

Linton, Cambridgeshire. 
Liverpool, Wavertree. 
London Missionary Society. 
Lower Edmonton. 

Maidstone, West Street. 
Mancliester Congregational Board. 
Millwall, West Ferry Road. 

Needham Market. 
Newport, Monmouthshire (Welsh). 
Nottingham Congregational Insti- 
tute. 
Nottingham, Mansfield Road. 

Old Kent Road, Marlborough 

Chapel. 
Old Street, New Tabernacle. 

Peckham, Hanover Chapel. 

Peckham, Clifton Chapel. 

Pontypridd and Rhondda Valley 
Welsh Congregational Associa- 
tion. 

Radnorshire and Wye Side Congre- 
gational Association. 
Ramsgate. 

Scarborough, Peak. 
Scarborough, '* The Bar." 
Sheffield, AtterclifiFe. 
Sheffield, Broome Park. 
Sheffield Tabernacle. 
Sheffield and Doncaster District 
Congregational Union. 



to the Palm-Branch, 



275 



Sherborne, Dorset. 

Southampton, Albion Chapel. 

Southampton Road, N.W., Gospel 
Oak. 

South London Congregational 
Ministers' Association. 

South-west Carnarvonshire Con- 
gregational Association. 

Spalding. 

Stamford Hill. 

Stamford. 

Stockwell Green. 

Stratford. 



Sunderland, Grange Chapel. 
Swansea, St. Paul's. 

Walworth, Sutherland Chapel. 

Wanstead. 

West Brompton. 

West Kensington. 

Westminster. 

Westminster Bridge Road, Christ 

Church. 
Wolverhampton, Snow Hill. 
Wolverhampton, Queen Street. 
Wolverhampton, Cleveland Street. 



PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES, &a 



Arbroath Presbytery of the Free 

Church of Scotland. 
Armagh Presbyterian Church. 
Athlone Presbytery. 

Belfast Presbytery. 

Birmingham Presbyterian Church of 

England. 
Brechin Free Church Presbytery. 
Bristol Presbytery. 

Carlisle Presbyterian Church of 

England. 
Carrickfergus Presbytery. 
Cavan Presbytery of the Presbyterian 

Churches in Ireland. 
Church of Scotland. 
Clapham Road, Trinity Church : 

Presbytery of South London. 
Cullybackey Presbyterian Church. 

Dingwall Free Church of Scotland. 

Dublin, Ministerial Meeting of Pres- 
byterian Ministers. 

Dumbarton Free Church of Scotland. 

Duns, N.B., Free Church Presbytery 
of Duns and Chirnside. 

Dundee Free Church of Scotland. 

Elgin and Inverness Presbytery. 

Forfar Presbytery of the Church of 
Scotland. 



Forfar Presbytery of the Free 
Church of Scotland. 

General Assembly of the Free 

Church of Scotland. 
Glasgow Presbytery of the United 

Presbyterian Church. 
Glasgow Free Church Presbytery. 
Glasgow, Gorbals' Tabernacle 

Church. 
Glasgow, Free Anderton Church. 
Glasgow, London Road Church. 
Greenock Free Church Presbytery. 

Helensburgh, N.B., Presbyterian 
Court. 

Irvine Free Church Presbytery. 

Kilmarnock and Ayr Presbytery. 
Kirkaldy United Presbyterian Pres- 
bytery. 

Liverpool Presbytery. 

Manchester Presbytery. 

Nairn Free Church Presbytery. 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Walker Pres- 
byterian Church, 
North London Presbytery. 



2/6 



From the Pulpit 



Perth and Aberdeen Presbytery of 

United Original Seceders. 
Paisley Free Presbytery. 

Saltcoats Free Presbyterian Church. 
South London Presbytery. 



Stafford, Presbytery of Birmingham. 
Somers Town Presbytery. 
Swansea, St. Andrew's Presbytery. 
Stranraer Presbytery. 
Synod of the Presbyterian Church 
of Eastern Australia. 



WESLEYAN & OTHER METHODIST CHURCHES, &c. 



Anglesea Calvinistic Methodists. 
Ashton-under-Lyne Methodist New 
Connection. 

Bala Calvinistic Methodist College. 
Barnsley Wesley an Reform Union. 
Bristol Wesleyan Methodist Coimcil. 

Cable Street, St. George's Chapel. 
Cardiff, Plas - Newydd, English 

Calvinistic Methodists. 
Cardiff Wesleyan Methodist Council. 
City Road, Wesleyan Methodist 

Chapel. 
Combined Methodist Bodies of 

Manchester. 

Demerara Wesleyan Mission. 
Denmark, sixteen Pastors of the 

Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Denmark, Svendborg Methodist 

Church. 
Dublin Methodist Ministers. 
Dublin, Rathmines Methodist 

Church. 

Falmouth Road, Welsh Calvinistic 

Methodist Church. 
Flintshire Wesleyan Council. 

General Committee of the Primitive 
Methodist Connection. 

Hayle, Copperhouse Wesleyan 

Church. 
Huddersfield United Wesleyan 

Ministers. 
Hyderabad, Wesleyan Mission 

House. 



Ireland, Newtown Barry Methodist 
Church. 

Liverpool Presbytery of the Cal- 
vinistic Methodist Church of 
Wales. 

Liverpool Wesleyan Ministers. 

London District, United Methodist 
Free Churches. 

London Methodist Free Church, 
7th Circuit. 

London Wesleyan Methodist 
Council. 

London Wesleyan Ministers. 

Loughborough Methodist Free 
Church. 

Manchester Methodist Bodies. 

*' Methodist Monthly Magazine " 

Staff. 
Montgomeryshire Welsh Calvinistic 

Methodists. 
Manchester Presbytery of the Welsh 

Calvinistic Methodists. 

North Cardiganshire Monthly Meet- 
ing of the Welsh Calvinistic 
Methodists. 

North Wales Calvinistic Methodist 
Association. 

Nottingham Primitive Methodist 
Council. 

Philadelphia Episcopal Methodist 

Church. 
Pembroke Dock Welsh Calvinistic 

Methodist Presbytery. 
Primitive Methodist Church, New 

Surrey Chapel, Blackfriars 

Road. 



to the Palm-Branch, 



277 



Piimititive Methodist Church, Sum- 
ner Road, Peckham. 

Primitive Methodist Church, 
Norbiton. 

Primitive Methodist Connection, 
First District. 

Primitive Methodist Sunday-school, 
Portsmouth. 

Pontypridd Monthly Meeting of 
Methodist Churches. 

Sheffield Wesleyan Methodist 

Council. 
Sunderland United Methodist Free 

Church. 
Sunderland Methodist Ministers' 

Association. 
Sunderland Methodist Free Church, 

South Durham Street. 



Sydenham Wesleyan Men's Sunday 

Afternoon Bible-class. 

Wakefield United Methodist Free 
Church. 

Wesleyan Missionary Society, Cen- 
tenary Hall, Bishopsgate. 

West Hartlepool Wesleyan 
Churches. 

West Indian Wesleyan Methodist 
Church, Eastern Annual Con- 
ference. 

West Kensington Methodist New 
Connection. 

West London Mission, St. James's 
Hall. 

West Merioneth Calvinistic Metho- 
dist Presbytery. 

Woodford Wesleyan Church. 

Welsh Calvinistic Methodists of 
London. 



UNITED NONCONFORMIST CHURCHES, &c. 



Abergele: All the Nonconformist 
Ministers. 

Birmingham Meeting of Pastors of 
Baptist, Congregational, and 
Presbyterian Churches. 

Buckley United Churches. 

Burnley United Nonconformist 
Churches. 

Colchester Evangelical Noncon- 
formist Churches. 

Deptford. New Cross, and Brockley 
Free Churches. 

General Body of Protestant Dis- 
senting Ministers of the three 
Denominations. 



London Nonconformist Council. 

Montgomeryshire, Meifod Non- 
conformists. 

Norwich Nonconformist Ministers. 

Ryde, Isle of Wight, Nonconformist 
Ministers' Monthly Meeting. 



South-West Ham 
Council. 



Nonconformist 



United Service of Evangelical 
Churches, held in the Reformed 
(Dutch) Church of St. Thomas, 
West Indies. 



MINISTERS' ASSOCIATIONS, FRATERNALS, &c. 

Brighton and Hove Association of 
Free Churches. 

Brisbane, Ministers' Association of 
Queensland. 

Broughton District Evangelists* 
Association. 



Aberdeen Evangelical Association. 
Auckland (N. Z.) Ministers' Associ- 
ation. 



Birmingham and West Midland 
Evangelical Association. 



278 



From the Pulpit 



Burnley Nonconformist Ministers' 
Association. 

Cambridge Village Preachers' 
Association. 

Canada Ministerial Association. 

Cardiff Ministerial Union. 

Carlisle Nonconformist Ministers' 
Association. 

Chesham District Ministers' Fra- 
ternal. 

Chester Nonconformist Association. 

Coventry Preachers' Union. 

Croydon Ministers' Association. 

Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.A., 

Ministers' Association. 
Dunstable and Luton Ministers' 

Fraternal Union. 

Glasgow Congregational and 
Evangelical Union. 

Hastings and St. Leonards Ministers' 

Fraternal. 
Hinckley Nonconformist Ministers' 

Association. 

King's Langley Ministers' Fraternal. 

London Hospital Christian 
Association. 

Medical Missionary Association. 
Midlothian Evangelists' Association. 
Montreal Protestant Ministerial 
Association. 



Mountain Ash Nonconformist 
Ministers' Association. 

Nelson, Colne, and District Noncon 
formist Ministers' Association. 

Nottingham Nonconformist Minis- 
ters' Fraternal. 

Oldham Nonconformist Ministers' 
Association. 

Pastors' College Evangelical As- 
sociation. 

Penzance Nonconformist Ministerial 
Association. 

Preston Nonconformist Ministerial 
Association. 

Pontypridd Dissenting Ministers' 
Association. 

Portsmouth Mmisterial Union. 

Reading Ministers' Fraternal. 

Scarborough Nonconformist Minis- 
terial Association. 

Scotland Sabbath Protection As- 
sociation. 

Sheffield Ministers' Fraternal. 

South- East London Nonconformist 
Ministers' Union. 

South Shields Nonconformist 
Ministers' Association. 

Stroud District United Ministers' 
Fraternal. 

Swansea Nonconformist Ministers' 
Union. 



SUNDAY SCHOOLS, &c. 



Barsbridge Mission Sabbath School, 

Belfast. 
Birmingham Sunday School Union. 
Bristol Sunday School Union. 
Brixton Auxiliary Sunday School 

Union. 

Camberwell Mission and Ragged 
School Union, 

India Sunday School Union. 

Lambeth Auxiliary Sunday School 
Union. 



Nottingham, Arnold, Pleasanl 
Sunday Afternoons. 

Spalding United Sunday School 

Teachers. 
Stockwell Orphanage Sunday 

Schools. 
Sunday School Union. 

WintowTi Street, Leeds, Women's 
Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. 

Wolverhampton, Mount Zion, 
Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. 

Wolverhampton, Wood Street, 
Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. 



to the Palm-Branch. 



279 



MISSION HALLS. 



Birmingham, Vauxhall Railway 

Mission. 
Borough, Arcadia Mission. 

Costers' Mission Hall, Hackney. 

Edgware Road, Metropolitan 
Mission Hall. 

Morley Hall, Hackney. 

Nottingham, Redoubt Street, Gospel 
Mission. 

Pimlico, Ebury Mission. 



Philippopolis, 
Hall. 



Bulgaria, Mission 



Richmond Hall, Seven Sisters Road, 

Hollo way. 
Richmond Street, Walworth, 

Workers' Annual Meeting. 

Southampton, Nichols Town Mis- 
sion Maternal Society. 

Surrey Gardens Memorial Hall, 
Young Men's Bible-class. 

Working Men's Mission, New Cut, 
Lambeth. 



YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 



Acton. 
Adelaide. 

Birmingham. 
Bristol. 

Cardiff. 

Central. 

City of London. 

Cork. 

Croydon. 



Dublin. 

Glasgow United. 
Grays. 

Halifax. 
Hammersmith. 

National Council. 
Newcastle-on-Tyne. 



TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES. 



Bishop's Waltham Blue Ribbon 
Gospel Temperance Union. 

Blue Ribbon Gospel Temperance 
Mission. 

British Women's Temperance 
Association. 

City of London Total Abstinence 
Union. 

Derby Temperance Society. 

Gosport, Union Chapel, Temperance 
Institute. 



Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, Happy Home Lodge, 
No. 269. 

Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, Bonder's End. 

Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, Gunnersbury Lodge, 
No. 1,292. 

Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, South-West Lancashire 
District. 

Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, Staffordshire District 
Lodge. 



280 



From the Pulpit 



Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, Battersea Advance Lodge, 
3.036. 

Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, Sunningdale. 

Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, East and Mid Surrey 
District Lodge. 

Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, Star of Worcester Lodge. 

Independent Order of Good Temp- 
lars, Dublin Castle Lodge. 



Moss Side, Manchester, Baptist 
Temperance Society. 

National Temperance League. 

Newcastle -on-Tyne, Abbott's Ter- 
race, Gospel Temperance 
Society. 

New Surrey Chapel Gospel Tem- 
perance Society. 

North of England Temperance 
League. 

United Kingdom Railway Tem- 
perance Union. 



RESOLUTIONS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. 



Abergele, English Calvinistic 

Churches. 
Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society. 
Alford Scripture Reading and Pxayer 

Union. 

Bedminster Union. 
Bible Christian Church, Crediton. 
Bible Christian Conference. 
Birmingham, Bloomsbury Institute. 
Birmingham Police Institute. 
Board of Delegates Hospital 

Saturday Fund. 
British and Foreign Bible Society. 
British and Foreign Bible Society, 

Bombay Auxiliary Committee. 

Cabragh Society, Ballymena. 
Camberwell, Albany Institute. 
Cape General Mission. 
Cardiff Town Mission. 
Children's Home, Bonner Road. 
Chma Inland Mission. 
Church of England Zenana Mission. 
Clapham Relorm Club. 
Committee, Free Church of England, 

Rockdale, New South Wales. 
Constantinople, Churches in and 

around. 
Croydon Protestant Alliance. 

Dublin United Religious Services. 



East London Mission to the Jews. 
Ebenezer Young Men's Mutual 

Improvement Society. 
Evangelical Alliance. 
Evangelical Alhance, South London 

Branch. 
Evangelistic Mission. 
Evangelization Society. 
Exeter Local Preachers' Union. 

Festiniog Local Board, N. Wales. 
Free Church of England, Cathay's 

Terrace, Cardiff. 
French Reformed Evangelical 

Church. 

Hackney Road Conservative Club. 
Hamburg English Reformed 

Church. 
Hanley Salvation Mission. 
Hastings Calvinistic Protestant 

Union. 
Hebrew Christians' Prayer Union. 
Highland Orphanage, Inverness. 
Holy Trinity Church, Gray's Inn 

Road. 
Holywell School Board, Flintshire. 

Kentish Town Adult School. 

Lambeth Board of Guardians, 
Lambeth Vestry, Kennington Road. 



to the Palm-Branch, 



281 



Legation of the United States. 

*' Lewiston Journal," Editorial 

Rooms. 
Liberation Society. 
London City Mission. 
London United District of Ancient 

Order of Foresters. 
Loyal Orange Institution of England. 
Loyal Orange Lodge, No. 17, 

Portsmouth District. 
Loyal Orange Lodge, No 667, 

Hatcham. 

Magistrates and Town Council of 
the Royal Burgh of Wick. 

Margate, Emmanuel Church. 

Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses 
of Great Tonington, Devon. 

Metropolitan Hospital Sunday Fund 
Council. 

Monthly Tract Society. 

Moravian Churches. 

Northampton, Commercial Street, 

Young Men's Society. 
Nottingham Men's Sunday Morning 

Institute. 

Open Air Mission. 
Open Air Mission, South London 
Auxiliary. 

People's Mission, Great Arthur 

Street, Golden Lane. 
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, New 

York, U.S.A. 
Pontypridd Eisteddfod. 
Preachers' Preparation Class, 

Bristol. 

Ragged School Union. 



Religious Tract Society. 
Royal Hospital for Incurables. 

Salvation Army. 
Scottish Protestant Alliance. 
Seamen's Institute, Rotterdam. 
Society for the Propagation of 

Bibles and Religious Books, 

Port-au-Prince, Hayti 
Society for the Rescue of Young 

VVomen and Children. 
Society for the Suppression of the 

Opium Trade. 
Society of Friends in Great Britain. 
South London Association for 

Assisting the Blind. 
South London Early Closing 

Association. 
South London Hospital Sunday 

Fund. 
South Norwood Literary Societies. 
St. Luke's Institute 
St. Mary's Vestry, Newington. 
St. Winifred's Youths' Institute, 

1 1 2, Lower Road. 
Stepney Meeting. 

The Christian League, St. Philips, 
Sydney, New South Wales. 

Theological Seminary, Louisville, 
Kentucky, U.S.A. 

Tremont Temple, Boston, U.S.A. 

Trowbridge Local Board, 

Upper Tooting Reformed Episcopal 
Church. 

Women's Prayer Union, Christ- 
church, New Zealand, 

Working Men's Lord's Day Rest 
Association. 



MR. SPURGEON'S NEW BOOKS. 

I. THE SALT-CELLARS, PROVERBS AND QUAINT 

SAYINGS, Together with Homely Notes Thereon. 

•M. to Xr, Very handsomely bound in i2mo, illuminated 
cloth, gilt side, $i 50. 

"The placing of a proverb for every day for twenty years 
has cost me great labor, and I feel that I cannot afford to lose the 
large collection of sentences which I have thus brought together. 
There are many proverb books, but none exactly like these. Some 
of my sentences are quite new, and more are put into a fresh form." 

Prom the AiUhor's Preface. 
The London Literary World says : " There is not a page that is not brightened 
with genuine wit and enriched with wisdom." 

" An admirable help to teachers and preachers, being very suggestive of illus- 
tration. It is not only highly entertaining, but full of instruction." 

St. Louis Evangelist. 

Second Series — A Companion Volume — JfK to ^, 
THE SALT-CELLARS, PROVERBS AND QUAINT 
SAYINGS. Bound uniform with ist series. Price, |i 50. 

"In these two volumes Mr. Spurgeon has furnished a large 
treasury of valuable illustrations— this second volume, like the first, 
will be eagerly secured." British Weekly. 

II. THE CHEQUE BOOK OF THE BANK OF FAITH. 

Being Precious Promises arranged for daily use. With 

brief experimental comments. Nearly 400 pages, i2mo, 

cloth, gilt side, $1 50. 

"When it is stated that this well-named book contains a Scrip- 
ture Promise for Each Day in the Year, commented on, in his best 
vein, by the prince of practical and experimental preachers, enough 
has been said to commend it as first in its class." 

New York Cliristian Intelligencer. 
" It is done in the great preacher's inimitable style, and speaks home on every 
page to the heart and need of the believer."— iVew York Independent. 

"Mr. Spurgeon's words are so plain, his style so sparkling, and his spirit so 
devout, that the reading of his productions is almost sure to excite a mental glow 
and awaken holy aspirations. This book is brimful of quickening, soothing, soul- 
lifting power. "—iVettf York Witness. 

" As there are three hundred and sixty-five cheques in this book, the man who 
right use of them is rich indeed." — New York Observer. 

Copies seni by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price. 

A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, New York. 



THE ONLY AUTHORIZED LIFE OF SPURGEON. 



"FROM THE USHER'S DESK TO THE 
TABERNACLE PULPIT, 

THE LIFE AND LABORS OF PASTOR C. H. SPURGEON." 

By Eev. E. Shindler, 5 Portraits of Mr. Spurgeon, Family Portraits, 
and 60 other illustrations, some full-page, including Mr. Spurgeon's 
birthplace; the Stockwell Orphanage; His Home and Study at 
Westwood ; Mr. Spurgeon at Mentone, and other illustrations of 
equal interest. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50 {sent 'postpaid, on receipt of 'price). 

" This is the best biography of the great London preacher. It was prepared dur- 
ing his lifetime under his personal supervision, from material that nobody could 
have furnished but himself; and it would have appeared within a few weeks if he 
had lived. Prepared in this way, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN ALL BUT THE 
FORM, it may be received as unquestionably authentic. The 6o illustrations add 
mutih to the value of the book." — New York Examiner, 

Mr. Spurgeon's review of this Book 

{from advanced sheets) written during his 
illness, says ; " Great pains have been taken 
to secure accuracy, and to make a history 
which would be thoroughly reliable. All 
who wish to know what a friend can say 
of the writer and his surroundings should 
at once get this new * Life.' 



> ?) 



Tliis volume includes an account of Mr. Spurgeon's last 
days and death. 

New York Christian Intelligencer : " It is written by one who has known him long 
and intimately, and who had so fully the co-operation and sympathy of the illus- 
trious subject and his family that in many portions it is almost an autobiography. 
The result is an unusually interesting and satisfactory biography." 

New York Evangelist : " A life of Mr. Spurgeon which had been prepared before- 
hand, largely fi-om materials furnished by himself, of incidents which could be 
known to no one else. Indeed, many of the chapters were read to Mr. Spurgeon on 
his deathbed, and received his approval, so that the book can be said to be in all 
but the name an avtoMography. With such assurance of its accuracy, there can 
be no question of the absorbing interest of a narrative of that extraordinary 
career." 

New York Observer : " This trustworthy history of the life of Mr. Spurgeon will 
be valued by Christians of all denominations. Long and intimate acquaintance 
with Mr. Spurgeon, a heartfelt admiration for his subject, abundant leisure, and 
thorough literary facility make Mr. Shindler pre-eminently the biographer of the 
great preacher. It has had the advantage of deliberate and careful toil and prep- 
aration under Mr. Spurgeon's personal supervision. The book will be universally 
read and welcomed. The illustrations are interesting and such ae to enhance the 
value of the book." 



Copies sentf postpaid, on receipt of price ($1.50) by 

A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, 51 E. lOth Street, New York. 



JUL 18 1903 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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